


Adversity's Bloom

by Xyriath



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, BAMF Lan Fan, F/F, F/M, Feminist Themes, M/M, Mulan AU, Period-Typical Sexism, Trans Female Character, Trans Male Character, Violence, Women Being Awesome, Xerxes | Cselkcess, unsafe binding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-29
Updated: 2016-09-04
Packaged: 2018-08-10 05:29:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 49,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7832212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xyriath/pseuds/Xyriath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the midst of eking out a living as a disgraced bodyguard clan, Lan Fan’s small family faces an even greater challenge: as an army marches on Xing, the Emperor decrees that each family must send a man to serve in the country's army. No family is exempt, not even those with crippling scars—such as Lan Fan’s grandfather.</p><p>Unwilling to let half of her remaining family die, Lan Fan goes herself, disguised as a man, knowing that death awaits if she is discovered. Along the way, she faces the challenges of difficult royalty, a religious fanatic ushering a country to rebellion, and supernatural powers that no human should possess. And, just maybe, she might be the one who is perfectly poised to stop Xing from toppling into ruin.</p><p>(Lan Fan-centric AU based on Disney's Mulan.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> One fic of two written for the FMA Big Bang!
> 
> Cultural/Language notes:
> 
> 1\. This is based off of a fusion of Disney's Mulan and Arakawa's Xing; I have elected to retain elements of Xing rather than Disney's fictionalized version of China as much as possible. As such, family names are given as last names, and given names first. ("Ling Yao" instead of "Yao Ling".)
> 
> 2\. I have chosen to use a couple of Japanese terms instead of Chinese ones for terms which are more familiar in the Japanese language, such as "sarashi" and "tonfa," for clarity. I promise that I do know they are Japanese words and Xing is based on China; I just thought that I'd save the average reader confused googling.
> 
> If I've misstepped in any way, however, please don't hesitate to contact me and let me know!

[ ](http://fuzzbig.tumblr.com/post/149868920386)

_Art by[Fuzzbig](http://fuzzbig.tumblr.com/)_

  


* * *

  


Emperor Wu Yao, Sovereign of the Empire of Xing and patriarch of a dynasty going back millennia, stared solemnly down at the letter in his hand.

“And you’re sure this information is reliable,” he murmured, keeping his voice low.  He knew more than most how the walls of the imperial palace had ears and eyes.

His advisor nodded.  “I have confirmed with every independent source able.  It appears that the situation grows more dire even as we speak.  If we are to accept this plea for aid, we must make the necessary preparations immediately.”

Wu Yao glanced down, yet again, at the seal of the royal court of Xerxes, the mark of an ally pleading for help.  “And if we do, Xing will become their next target.”

“My deepest apologies, Your Imperial Majesty,” his advisor began with a bow, “but we already are.”  At the emperor’s sharp look, he continued.  “We have already heard reports of… incidents that seem to relate.  Fleeing citizens crossing the border into our land.  Strange missionaries preaching even stranger religions.”  The advisor hesitated, but at Wu’s piercing glare, continued.  “Even deaths, mysterious and bloody ones.  Of nobility and merchants who would be… invaluable assets, should we go to war.”

Wu’s breath caught at the last.

“And why am I just now being told of this?”

His advisor bowed deeply again.  “From what I understand, your intelligence only just realized that the events were connected.  We still don’t know, not for sure, but…”

“But given the circumstances, we’d be fools to assume otherwise.”  Wu closed his eyes, taking a deep breath.  “You say that Amestris will be sending its top generals to our aid, should we accept?”

“So we have been notified.”

“Ancestors above,” Wu murmured, opening his eyes once again to reread the letter.  “I’m getting far, far too old for this.”

—

“Lan Fan, fetch me an inkstone.”

The dismissive, condescending tone grated at something inside of her, something already raw from a day full of such requests, the latest in months of the same.  Three months, to be precise, every single one dragging along at a pace that left some part of her screaming in agony at the monotony, the prospect of continuing in the same way for the foreseeable future somehow closing in on her in a way that would have made even the jaws of death seem merciful.

But she bowed obediently to Shun Jiang, successful merchant of Haiwen City, and turned to go.

She had to bite back an argument to do it, of course; she always did.  A bodyguard should not be allowed to be separated from her charge like this, not in such an open area as the garden.  Had it been the Jiang family’s estate, secluded in the hills of Xiahe, she might not have worried so.  But this house in the city, though large for its location, only had room to house a fraction of the estate’s guards.  As well, whispers from the Imperial City had left Haiwen uneasy and anxious, Lan Fan included.  She had seen fights break out, heard of an increase in robberies, rumors of refugees…

But the look Jiang had given her the first few times she had protested being ordered from his side to perform menial tasks had resembled the one he would give a mushed bug squished under his silk shoe.  The final time, he had whirled on her and sharply lectured her on her place, how she had no right to think of herself as better than any other servant and how she ought to be grateful that he had allowed her this hired position, given her family’s history.

Despite Jiang’s orders, she detoured around the border of the garden, ensuring that no holes in the security had opened up since she had checked last.  She noted the locations of every servant, household member, and guard she spotted, ensuring that they provided at least _some_ coverage in her absence.  When she finished to her satisfaction, or as much satisfaction as she could have without being physically present, she made for the entrance of the house.  She wondered, if she walked a little faster, if she could perhaps outrun the hatred for this place that seemed to dog her every step.  If not, at least she might avoid another scolding about her shortcomings.

Jiang had wanted the prestige of a royal-caliber bodyguard, but the families with the names he sought were all bound to nobility or royalty—or would rather hold out to be so rather than accept a position with a mere merchant, no matter how wealthy.  The Xiu family, though theirs was one of the oldest names in Xing, had no such qualms, not with the disgrace Lan Fan’s father had brought on them years ago.  Any position she could find for decent pay was a blessing, and Jiang knew it.

So did his son.

Tai Jiang’s voice oozed around her from the outer room of Shun Jiang’s office.  “Lan Fan.  So I see you’ve decided to grace me with your company.  A rarity these days.”

Lan Fan swallowed, casting her eyes and biting back a reply of how an intelligent man would have understood _why_ that was the case and made his exit gracefully.  The nausea in her stomach she tried to shove away, along with her racing thoughts.  Something could be going wrong, right at this moment, a thief getting too bold, a disgruntled business partner or rival—Jiang had plenty of those.  And now she had been delayed further by this… _boy._

“I’m on an—”  Her throat choked on the word “errand,” and she had to try again, her mind’s eye conjuring up Tai’s expression of condescension as she focused intently on the desk.  “Your father asked me to retrieve something for him.  He’ll want to see me back immediately, I’m sure, for safety’s sake.”

The dismissive laugh from beside her involuntarily drew her attention to him—she had hoped to avoid that, the sight of the smug expression that made her skin crawl.

Lan Fan had overheard many well-bred young woman in the city giggling and swooning over Tai, and she supposed she couldn’t blame them—she could, of course, blame him, and very much did.  He knew how attractive he was, his refined features somber and almost regal, and he kept up an impeccably polite demeanor around those young women who might someday be marriage candidates.

Lan Fan, of course, was certainly not eligible, and he had no interest in her honor, except perhaps in the most base way.  And she certainly wasn’t the only one who was the subject of his intentions, just the only one who had been so open and successful in avoiding them.

“You know as well as I do that my father couldn’t give two shakes about whether or not you come back quickly,” Tai drawled.  “He doesn’t respect you.  Doesn’t treat you well at all.”  Tai stepped forward, closer to her, and Lan Fan pressed her lips together, standing her ground.  “I could talk to him about that, you know.  Ask him to ease up on you a bit.   _I’d_ treat you well.”

At _that_ , Lan Fan couldn’t hold back a scoff, albeit a soft one.  Tai raised his eyebrows, mouth in a flat line.  “You doubt me?”

She _did_ have the wherewithal to hold back anything else, which she considered more luck than actual credit to herself.  “I need to return to your father.  I have to ask that you leave me to my duties, unless you can tell me where to find…”

She trailed off as Tai lifted his hand, his smirk returning.

The bastard had the inkstone between his fingers.

She paused for a few moments, doing her best to find her center, breathing in and out.  She could _not_ afford to anger him.

“May I please have that?” she finally managed to ask, keeping her voice, she thought, impressively neutral.  “Your father needed it.”  She held out her hand.  He had ground the inkstick already, she saw, leaving a plentiful amount of liquid in the stone, but she doubted his intentions in doing so were remotely charitable.

“Hmmm.”  Tai tapped his finger to the side of the inkstone, watching her consideringly.  She was reminded uncharitably of the slightly older boy on their street who had liked to steal the dolls of younger girls and hold them out of their reach, laughing as they cried.  But Lan Fan couldn’t give Tai a severe scolding the way she had him.  No, this bully was out of her reach.

“I’ll give it to you for a kiss.”

Though Lan Fan’s mother would have told her that the amount of anger welling up in her was irrational, that she should let it in, yes, but also let it burn over her and sweep away, leaving her weaknesses burned away, everything strong remaining, Lan Fan _blazed._  She held onto it, now that it had escaped, three months of smoldering, smoking resentment that had just caught onto tinder and had now blossomed into an inferno of fury.

“Do you take me for some fool _?_ ” she spat, fists clenching, straightening.  Tai blinked in alarm, taking an involuntary step back.  He was on the short side, and Lan Fan, at her full height, stood above him slightly.  “I am not yours to woo, or touch, or try to coax into your bed.  I am a guard, hired to protect you and your family, and you will stop with your pursuit.”

Tai’s eyes widened almost comically, and he took another step back before managing to compose himself at least a small amount.  “You are a _servant girl_ ,” he gritted out, “and you have been hired to _serve._ ”

“I would rather serve a pile of cow dung than spend another moment in your presence,” she snarled, arm darting out to snatch the ink from his hand.

But he yanked it back, staggering backwards, face twisting into an ugly expression.  With a snarl, he lifted his own arm, then brought it down speedily, dashing the container down against the side of Jiang’s desk.

The ink splattered everywhere: all over Lan Fan, over Tai’s expensive silk pants, on the floor and the desk and the walls and, to Lan Fan’s abject horror, soaking Jiang’s costly imported Xerxesian carpet with blotches of black.

And Lan Fan snapped.

“You brat!” she snarled, reaching out to grab the front of Tai’s fine shirt in her fists, yanking him forward, twisting the cloth tightly, and lifting him off his feet.  She could see the shock in his eyes, the fear, as he realized that—yes, the _girl_ he had just sneered at had him dangling in the air.

“Help!” he screamed, gripping her wrists in a panic.  “Help—someone help me--!”

Before Lan Fan’s vision could clear, before she could set him down, the door crashed open, and Lan Fan found herself on the pointy ends of spears held in her face by two guards.

She dropped him.

Though some small part of her reveled in the sight of him falling on his ass in a puddle of black ink, the numb horror of realization crept through the rest as she lowered her arms to her sides, simply watching the two guards as Tai scrambled to safety.

—

“And _then_ , father,” Tai spat, turning to glare nastily at Lan Fan, who had settled her expression into one of stone, “when I began to reprimand her for her _clumsiness_ , she grabbed me, and told me that if I breathed a word…!”

Lan Fan watched impassively as Tai ‘composed’ himself, taking a deep breath and looking shaken.  Still, her fists clenched, and she nearly open her mouth to call him the slimy, lying worm that he was.

“I’ve heard enough!”  Jiang’s voice cut into the silence.  Both Lan Fan and Tai jumped slightly, but his next response was a slight smirk, where hers was an internal steeling herself for whatever Jiang might—

“Lan Fan Xiu,” he said coldly.  “I dismiss you from my service.

_No._

“Sir!” she gasped, horror flooding through her.  “You can’t—”

“I most certainly can.  You _attacked_ my _son—”_

“He’s lying!” she burst out.  “I have served you well—I have _stopped_ attackers and thieves, you’ve seen me—”

“You dare accuse my son of lying?” Jiang snapped, glaring her as nastily as his son had, pointing his beringed hand at her face, finger shaking slightly.  “You will leave _immediately._  I will be keeping your pay as a small fraction of the cost of the carpet you ruined, and as for attacking Tai—”

“Just leave it, father,” Tai drawled, smirking softly at Lan Fan from behind Jiang.  “After all, it’s not worth the trouble.  Not to go after an incompetent little girl.”

—

Lan Fan waited until she was outside the estate to cry.

She could _not_ let her family see it, of course, and it wasn’t difficult, on her way home, to find a private alley and press her palms to her eyes.  She hated this, hated that it made her seem _weak_ , that it only confirmed whatever expectations people like Jiang had about her, that she didn’t have the stomach for her work, but the notion that expressing her frustration and anger in a way that they just didn’t like—

But then, after her indulgence, her quiet, furious tears, the shame set in.  The nagging sensation that maybe they were right.  Maybe it meant that she wasn’t cut out for this, not with the way she had behaved.  She owed her loyalty and obedience to the man she served _and_ his family, or at least owed her respect.

And, most importantly, she knew that whatever shame she felt her family would feel a hundredfold.  It took everything she had, after making her way to her family’s house, to push open the gate and step inside the yard.  The ridged, bamboo-like eaves of home always settled her, just a little, even in a situation like this.  She had once heard from a priest that their upturned shape was meant to keep evil spirits away from the household; that might have something to do with it.

More likely, however, and much more secretly, was the knowledge that when she stepped inside, she wouldn’t have to leave for Jiang’s ever again.  She pushed away those thoughts, along with their associated guilt.

Her mother’s head lifted from the laundry, the side business she had started to help ends meet while Lan Fan had searched for bodyguard work.  Seeing the rising alarm in Zhong Xiu’s expression nearly prompted Lan Fan to turn around and walk back onto the street.

“Lan Fan!”  Zhong dropped the cloth she was scrubbing and quickly dried her hands.  “What’s wrong?  You look—Lan Fan!”

Though her mother had reached out to cup her face, Lan Fan had to pull away, turn it so Zhong couldn’t see the tears threatening to return.

She struggled for the words, to confess, trying to prepare herself for the inevitable disappointment—

An uneven gait sounded from inside, leaving her heart sinking and the truth that much harder to speak aloud.

Fu Xiu, Lan Fan’s grandfather, stepped through the front door, supported by his cane, and froze.

“Lan Fan?”  Fu’s gray mustache turned downwards in concern.  “Why are you home so early?”

She had to look down to be able to force her mouth to speak.

“Shun Jiang has decided that he no longer wishes to employ my services.”

The silence in the room was broken only by the quiet dripping from the laundry onto the ground.  Zhong, eyes wide with shock and worry, stepped forward.

“What?  But—why?  Lan Fan, what happened?”

She could only look into her mother’s face for a few moments before she dropped her eyes, and her grandfather’s face she couldn’t look into at all.

With a jerky shake of her head, she stepped around them both and headed inside.

—

As Lan Fan stared out her window at the pale pink spring blossoms, she tried to summon anything but hollowness and dread—and pretend that any small part left over was a tiny bit of relief.  She didn’t want to self-flagellate, didn’t want to hate herself, but the notion that after what she had done, the relief trickling through her felt wrong, all wrong.

She heard the thump-thump of her grandfather’s limp before he knocked softly on her door.  For a moment, Lan Fan nearly asked him to go, or simply refused to answer.  But after weighing the prospect of total aloneness with the prospect of facing Fu, she squeezed her pillow a little tighter and called out, “Yes?”

When he opened the door and stepped in, she watched him carefully.  Some days were worse than others, with his old injuries, and she couldn’t bear the thought that she might be causing him worse distress on top of physical pain.

But to her eyes, at least, he exerted no more effort than usual.  He sat at the foot of her bed.  The two were silent.

The breeze whistled softly in through the open window, doing its part to take the tiniest edge off of her nerves.  It didn’t do much, but the rustling of the blossoms brought with it some small measure of peace.  As such, she didn’t quite flinch when Fu spoke.

“When I was your age, or thereabouts,” he murmured, “I had one of the worst assignments of my life.”

At her shocked look, he snorted.  “Oh, I know, serve the family to which you’re bound, show them nothing but respect, even in your thoughts.  I’ve been hearing it longer than you’ve been alive.  But _this._ ”  The noise of disgust he made reminded her unsettlingly of the sensation speaking with Tai left in her mouth, or the prickling of frustration whenever sent on one of Jiang’s petty errands.  It left her with a flutter of hope.

“Oh, this young lord was spoiled and petty—I’m sure you know the type.”  He glanced at her sidelong.  “I think I made it for about three weeks before I tripped his fine noble bottom into the dirt.  An accident, of course.”  His eyes glinted, and Lan Fan offered a wobbly smile.  “I don’t even remember what it was that he did.  I was dismissed, of course.  Sent away in disgrace.  My father was furious _._  I’m sure I don’t need to repeat his lecture—ah, yes.”  Lan Fan glanced over at the interjection, attention held more raptly by the story than even she had realized.  “I remember now.  His father had recently acquired some lands from an impoverished noble family, and the lad was lording it over their son.  Not the first time he had done that sort of thing, either.  Arrogant little bastard.”

Lan Fan couldn’t help the little noise of shock that escaped her mouth, and if she hadn’t known better, she would have said that Fu’s lips had just twitched in a smile.

“Should I have sent him into the mud?  Well, no, probably not.  But our family has never been much able to tolerate injustice, have they?”  He eyed her sharply, and she had to look away yet again.  “But even after all of that, I wasn’t finished, no, was I?  I went on from there—oh, I had a difficult year or few, don’t get me wrong, but soon after that, I went on to serve the empress herself.”

The “until,” of course, went unspoken, just as it always did.  The shadow of Lan Fan’s father would likely never leave them.  Lan Fan would never serve the empress, and they both knew it; Fu’s encouragement was simply… more general.

No one could deny, of course, that Fu had been a very skilled bodyguard.  But sometimes that was the problem.

“He… resented it.  That it wasn’t you.”  She looked up again, mouth twisting slightly.  “Jiang, I mean.  Though he had someone with the Xiu name, I have… nothing of your respect.  Of your prowess.”  She swallowed.  “I’ve done nothing to earn them.  So who can blame him, for resenting that he was stuck with—” a _girl_ “—with me?”

Fu inhaled softly, and he reached out with wrinkled hands to take hers.  “Then he is greater a fool.  With my leg, I’d be no use to him whatsoever.  But you—you have all of my training and more.  You will take everything the Xiu family has to offer and refine it, perfect it, just as every generation has done before.  You are the finest we have to offer, which is very fine indeed.”

Her lower jaw trembled a bit, and before the tears could escape her aching heart into her traitorous eyes, she leaned forward, wrapping her arms around Fu and burying her face in his chest.  He hugged her tightly.

Still, she couldn’t quite push away the words that remained unspoken.  She wanted to prove him true, wanted so badly to be that pride for him, what he expected of her, but…

Not every generation of the Xius had brought honor, betterment, tempered the family name.  She knew that very well.

And she had to wonder, could something so flawed beget anything worthwhile?  If she had not received anything at all, how could she even begin to dignify those who had come before?


	2. Chapter 2

Though the chances of another bodyguarding job being offered so soon were slim, Lan Fan continued to hunt.  In the meantime, spurred on by her fear of Jiang showing up on their doorstep and demanding an exorbitant amount of money for his ruined carpet, she helped her mother with her laundry business.

It wasn’t that she found the work demeaning—quite the opposite; she had immense amounts of respect for her mother for being able to do it, day in and day out—but within days, Lan Fan wanted to tear her hair out with boredom.  She wasn’t good at it, she didn’t enjoy it, and it didn’t challenge her in a way that guarding did, pushing her to use all of her honed skills            to exacting standards of perfection.

Even running petty errands had allowed her the opportunity to divert herself occasionally _._

The one benefit to the work was that she and her mother’s arms were already stronger than most of the men they knew, and as such, Lan Fan made the deliveries go much more quickly, which in turn brought in more customers.  The money it made helped offset the loss of Lan Fan’s salary from Jiang, but wouldn’t even make a dent in the amount he would charge her if he decided it to be worth the trouble.

Weeks went by, however, without a word, and Lan Fan began to think that she might have escaped with the smallest amount of luck.  That didn’t mean, however, that she was any less uncomfortable when making deliveries in his area of town, and the last one of the day happened to take them right past the house.

Zhong hesitated before they turned onto the street, and Lan Fan could see the question in her mother’s eyes, the willingness to take a detour if Lan Fan couldn’t handle it.

She straightened, steeling her shoulders, and strode forward, pretending not to notice as she turned onto the street.

Laundry baskets in hand, the two women walked down the street.  Lan Fan very determinedly did not look in the direction of the Jiang household.

Until she heard shouts, and caught glimpses of a crowd out of the corner of her eye.

Her reluctant—or so she told herself—curiosity took over, and her feet immediately seemed to divert themselves in the direction of that crowd.  A quick glance that was an ingrained habit by now told her that her mother was following, albeit reluctantly, though Zhong said nothing.

“What’s going on?” she murmured to one of the individuals in the crowd, eyes fixed on the officials, if their clothing was any indication, who were clustered in front of the mansion’s gate.

“Not sure,” the woman whispered back, and Lan Fan could see out of her peripheral vision that she wasn’t looking away, either.  “The police got here ‘round an hour ago; they’re not lettin’ anyone inside, but they been takin’ people outta the house every now and then.”

Weeks weren’t quite enough time to destroy protective instincts, even only three months of them.  She set her laundry basket down in front of her mother, then began elbowing her way to the front.

She earned herself a fair amount of grumbles, but no one seemed to be inclined to argue with the deadly serious expression on her face, even if she was a girl.

When she broke ranks and headed towards the group of police, however, _they_ certainly took notice.

“Halt!” one of them snapped.  “This estate is closed.  Please move along.”

Though she wanted to wilt under the disdainful look, for no other reason than he was there and he was looking at her, she squared her shoulders, locking her knees.  “Please, sir.  I’d like to know what happened.  I’m—I was employed by the family—”

His dismissive expression snapped back to her, sharpening.  “You are a part of the household?”

She paused at that.  “I—well, no, not anymore, I just…”  When he gave her a look that plainly spelled _stop wasting my time_ , she wilted a bit.  “I used to protect them.  Guard them.  Until recently.  I saw the crowd and was concerned.”

The young man grimaced slightly.  “A bodyguard?  Pity.  They could have used one last night.”

Lan Fan froze, staring at him, a chill settling inside her bones, where the gentle warmth of the air couldn’t reach it.  “Last night?” she breathed.

The officer, however, simply glanced at her, shook his head, and turned away.

Lan Fan took a moment to process why he had done so, but once she had, she almost wished that her legs would turn to walk away, and immediately.

More policemen were walking out from the house, a stretcher between them.  Though a bamboo covering obscured any other sight, the mound left no doubt what was underneath it.   

“Clear a path!” one of them called, and Lan Fan tried to step back, but her legs still wouldn’t move.

One… two… three… four… five… six.  One for each member of Jiang’s family, the last two stretchers heartbreakingly small between the grown men who flanked them.  As she watched, the lead escort stopped, one of the men reaching out to tuck a limp, dangling, hand, covered with bloody golden rings, back underneath the covering.

“Was he in the garden?” she whispered, eyes fixed on the spot where the arm had been.

“Yes,” he replied, just as quietly, staring as well.

“I told him.”  Her throat constricted, voice choking.  “I—”

With a sharp gasp, she turned, shoving her way back through the crowd with even more desperation than before.

As she made her way back to her mother, trying her damnedest to stay steady, she caught sight of three fine horses trotting up to the house, sending pedestrians diving to each side.

The gold trim on their clothing identified them as royal officials.  She watched as they approached the policeman with whom she had been conversing earlier, one of them gesturing at the house with a scowl on his bearded face.

As she turned back to her waiting, fretting mother, picking up her basket and hurrying towards their next destination, an awful, sinking feeling settled in the pit of her stomach and refused to leave.

—

The horses rode up their street only hours later.  Lan Fan’s reflexes picked up on the clip-clopping immediately, something inside her still trying to identify threats.

When she slipped outside, she could see that she wasn’t the only one to notice.  Others had congregated outside a well, to stare at the riders.  When Lan Fan saw the yellow trim on their clothing, when she placed their faces from earlier, she understood why: Imperial Emissaries, all the way from the Imperial City, were not a common sight in the area.  As Fu limped out on her left, Zhong slipping outside beside him, Lan Fan’s stomach knotted.

The lead rider glanced around and apparently decided that he had a large enough audience, because he pulled his horse to a halt.

“On behalf of his Imperial Majesty, Wu Yao, Emperor of Xing, I bring urgent news!”

The loud bellow brought most of the remaining stragglers to their doors and windows, and after a few more cries of summoning, the street was more crowded than Lan Fan had ever seen it.  Crowded, and still.

“Xerxes, our ally, has fallen.”

Shocked noises rippled through the crowd, and the anxious knot in Lan Fan’s gut tightened, preparing for worse.

“A usurper who calls himself Father, preaching a strange religion, has overthrown Xerxes’s royal family.  His troops now march on Xing.”

Lan Fan inhaled sharply: the last time Xing had known war, Amestris’s old government had gotten greedy.  Speedy intervention from inside the country had quickly solved the problem, but not before a disastrous first battle that had shattered Xing’s morale, killing thousands—and with other, more personal and far-reaching effects that the Xiu family still felt today.

“Xerxes has turned to us for help, and Amestris has offered their aid as well.  By decree of the Emperor, one man from every family must serve in the Imperial Army to fend off the invaders.”

The words continued as the emissary began to detail precautions against this new religion and how to stop those loyal to Father who might be trying to infiltrate Xing.  But Lan Fan barely listened, the Emperor’s orders still ringing in her ears.

The listing of families began, taken from the impeccably accurate Imperial census.  Chu.  Wang.  Zhong.  Men, some of age, some older, and some frighteningly young, stepped forward.  But all were, at least, able-bodied.

“Xiu.”

As if seeing through someone else’s eyes, Lan Fan watched Fu press his cane into Zhong’s hands, ignoring her terrified expression as he stepped forward.

Lan Fan didn’t miss the shift in the expressions of the emissaries as he did so.  Lips twisting in a grimace, noses turning up in a sneer.  Her blood ran cold, then hot at their veiled disdain.  They knew the Xiu name.  They knew of Fu.  They knew of his son.  Of Lan Fan’s father.  And they didn’t bother to hide this, not even as Fu stepped forward to accept his servitude to his country, one that would mean his death.

Though her hands shook at her side, she balled them into fists, stepping forward as well.

Fu paused, turning, and the look he shot her stopped her in her tracks.  The fierceness in his expression hadn’t dulled over the years, and it pierced through her chest like throwing knives.

With ragged breaths, she stumbled backwards, even as her grandfather strode on.

—

Fu’s orders, rolled neatly into a scroll, lay on their table, the innocuous paper bringing with it a silence so heavy that nothing else in their house could compare.

Fu and Lan Fan helped Zhong set out dinner, and the three of them ate in absolute silence.  When Lan Fan glanced up at the two of them, they were focused intently on their rice and tea.  But then, her glances were so quick and furtive that she very well might have missed the two of them doing the same.

She rolled the words around in her head, as she had been in the hours that had passed since this afternoon.  They still weren’t perfect, and likely never would be, but she hoped—she _prayed_ —that she had at least organized them enough not to fall out of her mouth in an unidentifiable jumble.

Start simple.

“I can go.”

Her mother’s head jerked up, eyes wide with horror, and Fu’s voice cut as sharply through the air as his gaze had through her earlier.  “Absolutely not.”

“But I _can!_ ” she burst out, gripping the edge of the table.  “I’m useless here; we can _see_ that, and I can fight; I have the training—”

“You are _not_ trained for this.”

“I _could_ be—”

“I said no!”  Fu rose, steadying himself on the tabletop, and Lan Fan found herself standing as well, staring at him from across the table, both their eyes burning.  “Yes, you have learned from me, but I have taught you stealth.  Deception.  Ambush.  None of these have any place on the battlefield, and you will only get yourself and anyone around you killed, if you think that it gives you an advantage on a combat-trained soldier!”

“Women are not allowed in the army.”  Zhong’s voice slid between them, slightly placating, though losing none of its sternness.  “You would be sent home in disgrace.”

The last word sent a nasty jolt up through her, a reminder of what everyone at the table was thinking.  “It would still be better than sending grandfather off to _die—!_ ”

“I am at peace with myself!” he snapped, glaring over at her.  “ _I_ know what is expected of me from our country, from our Emperor.  And I will not fail him because I am afraid.  Neither will you.”

The words cracked through the air, ringing between them with more force than if he had reached out over the table and slapped her across the face.  Lan Fan stood, mouth slightly open, eyes wide, pants shallow as she struggled to breathe.

She turned, scrambling to her feet, cushion shooting across the room in her haste to clear her uncooperative legs from it.  Though for a moment, she hesitated, nearly pausing to pick it up, the thought of spending another moment in that room almost sent her into a panic right then and there.  Without another word, she fled.

—

In her heart of hearts, she had known what she must do, even as the Xiu name had been called.

Fu and Zhong didn’t chase her, knowing that it was best to let her be alone for some time.  What they didn’t know, of course, was that she was simply waiting for them to fall asleep.

She prayed while she waited.  To any gods listening, any ancestors or spirits that might decide to take pity on her, despite what she was about to do.

As she crept out into the quiet kitchen, her mother and grandfather sleeping only walls away, she accepted the futility of denying her fear.  Though picking up the scroll with the orders might have seemed brave, facing the prospect of likely death, and absolute certainty of it if she were discovered, she only acted out of fear of something greater.  Her grandfather would see the missing scroll and know her cowardice for what it truly was.

But that was preferable than staying here and watching him go off to his death, idly washing clothes with her mother until the inevitable letter came, filled with rote condolences and not much more.

One of the few articles left to them by her father was a set of armor, old and worn, but still sturdy.  It needed polishing, but for now, it would do.  She took his weapon as well, a sword that was much larger than she was used to, and though she had no trouble lifting it, it felt clumsy in her hand when she tried to wield it.

She tied the belt around her waist regardless.  She would learn.  She _had_ to.

Her own weaponry, much smaller knives and other assortments of sharp and deadly objects more suited to stealth than warfare, came in one of the two small packs she allowed herself.

Though it took her trembling fingers several tries to mimic the masculine hairstyle she had seen on one of the emissaries, she eventually managed to replicate the simplest of the lot.  Her sarashi, pulled tighter than usual and wrapped double, flattened her chest to the point of passability, even if she were caught with her shirt off, as long as whoever it was didn’t pay too much attention.

But she would avoid that if at all possible.

When she finished, pulling the sword out clumsily once again, the reflection in the blade was no longer one of a young woman.  A very young man, perhaps, but she had seen the wide eyes of those just as young, or even younger, accepting their summons today.

She squared her shoulders in the armor, fumbling to resheath the sword.  It would have to do.


	3. Chapter 3

The next morning, with the light of day shining down on her as she paced back and forth in a bamboo thicket outside the training camp, she stayed consumed with only one thought.

How could I have been so _stupid?_

It hadn’t seemed real, as she had marched the path towards the outskirts of the city, finally paused some time in the depths of the night to quickly nap, as she had trained to do, before waking in the morning to take the rest of the journey.  Night, and dawn, had an ethereal quality to them that seemed to mute the reality of things, push away the possibility of consequences and urge on ideas that were utterly foolish.

The chatter and noise of the camp, however, could not have been more grounded in reality.  Swords clanged, men shouted, animals cried out, and Lan Fan was completely insane.

She could go back, possibly.  The thought kept creeping in with every round of stepping, the underbrush completely crushed now underneath her shoes.  She could prostrate herself and apologize sincerely to her grandfather; he might forgive her, or at least not—

No.  She couldn’t think about that.  Then no one from the Xiu family would arrive that day, and it would only prove their suspicions.

And truly, Lan Fan could not face her grandfather, not after what she had done.

That left only the one option: forward.  But the very notion seemed unthinkable as well.  What sort of disguise was this, that she had thought it could fool even the smallest child?  They would take one look at her and, as her mother had said, send her back home in disgrace.  Sneer at the Xiu family for sending a _woman_ to fight in their place.  Sneer at her grandfather for _his_ cowardice.

But she had studied gaits, in her training.  And if someone accused her of being a woman, she could just claim to be a... feminine young man.

Though she had tried to practice a deeper voice, the embarrassment of talking aloud to no one in particular had quickly silenced her.  Still, from what she had heard, it wasn’t _too_ awful.

So she had to continue.

Lan Fan took a deep, shaky breath, as she had several times this morning, then stepped to the edge of the thicket.  Perhaps this time she would summon the courage to push through, the courage to bat aside the plants and strut up to the milling individuals—

A cry sounded from the other side of camp, and it spread through it, voices turning excited and eager.  She could see most of the men drop what they were doing and head in that direction, and she took her chance, snatching up her things and darting through the small hole she had made.  No one seemed to give her a second glance as she scurried up to the group, only just remembering to adjust her stride so as to seem less feminine.  This was all about perception, and that was something she could handle.  It was strange to be on the other end, the one attempting to hide her intentions, but it was still the same principle.  She simply had to be smarter than they were.

Still, she tried to make herself smaller, less noticeable as she fell into the streams of men, glancing away whenever anyone glanced near her while still trying to keep an eye out for where new recruits should…

“Hey, not that way!”

Lan Fan nearly jumped out of her armor at the sharp voice, the eyes that settled right on her.

“Lad, haven’t you heard?  The prince is here!  We’re all to meet him, immediately.”

Prince— _prince?_   _Royalty?_  Oh, oh no.  She had not signed up for this.  She should have turned and bolted home the moment she had seen the camp on the horizon.

But the streams of men had turned into a flood, and Lan Fan found herself buffeted onwards, fully convinced that she was headed towards her doom.

Though the man _had_ called her “lad.”  Surely that was a good sign?

Lan Fan tried her best not to be at the front of the crowd.  With her luck, this, of course, meant that she ended up slowly nudged and jostled and bumped until, when she tried to squirm away from the bodies pressing in all around her, she popped out right at the edge—which put one of the imperial horses right in her line of sight, bearing a figure clad in gold on its back.

Lan Fan scrambled to melt back into the crowd, or at least become a part of it again.  Right now the last thing she wanted to do was stand out.

The horse stepped closer, and Lan Fan finally got her first look at a royal.

Had her father chosen a different path, she likely would have recognized him easily.  She might have even guarded him herself, raised by his side like the most loyal bodyguards, of whom Fu used to tell her stories.

He couldn’t be much older than her, if at all.  She certainly wouldn’t put him at any older than twenty.  She had thought that Tai Jiang had had a regal bearing about him, but in comparison, he might as well have been a street beggar.  The prince—for who else could it be?—had his black hair tied back in a tail even longer than Lan Fan’s would have been, free bangs framing narrow eyes that took in his surroundings with sharp glances.  Though elegant, his features had something almost unforgiving about them, and a shiver ran down her back at the notion of crossing him.

He tugged his horse to a stop, giving the mass of recruits a long look-over.  The man behind him stopped as well, straightening in his seat.

“His Imperial Highness, Ling Yao!”

The prince lifted his head, criticism in every inch of his being.

“Has no one ever taught any of you to stand in straight lines?  When I call for an orderly assembly, I expect _orderly!_ ”

His sharp voice cracked out over the crowd, and it hummed to life immediately.  Lan Fan found herself bumped and jostled as the men quickly tried to form something resembling ranks.  She frantically looked for an open spot among the slowly developing lines, but being near the front, no one seemed to want to step back to offer her an opening, and she could _feel_ the prince’s disdainful eyes on them all.

There—a spot!  She dove for it, a gap in an otherwise relatively straight line.

“Out of the way, boy!”

Though her feet were very firmly planted in that spot, a man twice Lan Fan’s size headed straight towards her, clearly intending to usurp her position.  She set her jaw and stood her ground, not about to open herself to embarrassment—

But his hand gripped her bicep, and a decade and a half of training took over.

She could perform a throw like this in her sleep—and had, at times, when Fu had decided that she needed to ensure that she remained prepared at all times.  The larger man’s weight worked against him, and she pivoted on one foot after breaking his balance, sending him rolling into the dirt.

When she straightened, not even breathing hard, she felt a small flash of pride in herself for defending her spot.

That is, until she realized that she had sent him sprawling right into the prince’s path.

Faced with a sudden mass tumbling out in front of it, the black horse let out a shrieking neigh, rearing back into the air.  Lan Fan gaped in horror at the prince, fighting for control of the reins, and then at the man she had thrown, dangerously close to those flailing hooves.

But he managed to scramble away, just barely, and when the horse’s hooves touched down, the man was out of the way.  A quick glance at the prince had her wondering about his precision, how intentional that had been.

She swallowed, trying to make herself small, watching the prince cautiously.  Perhaps he hadn’t seen her part in things.  His gaze slid from his horse, to the sitting man in front of him, and then all the way up…

…To meet her eyes.

She quickly ducked her head, freezing except for one more quick glance upwards, which revealed a look that the prince exchanged with his escort.  Oddly enough, it didn’t appear to be entirely friendly.

“You.”

Lan Fan flinched slightly at the sharp tone in his voice, then lifted her eyes.  He was staring directly at her.

With futile hope, she quickly glanced back over her shoulder.  Though the mass of men had assembled into something somewhat resembling straight lines, she couldn’t see anyone behind her to whom the prince might be speaking.

She swallowed again, turning back to face him, though keeping her eyes on the ground.

“Look at me.”

It took more effort than she could have imagined to pull her eyes up from the ground, finally settling them on his face.  Those eyes, they were fixed on _her._

He knew.  She knew he did, she knew that she was over and done with, that he was about to pull that sword from his back and take her head clean off her shoulders—

“What is your name?”

She gaped slightly, blinking at the question.  When she didn’t answer, trying to wrap her mind around it—and around an answer—he shifted, the horse detecting his dissatisfaction and fidgeting underneath him.

“You _do_ have a name, do you not?  Tell me what it is.  Your prince orders it.”

“Lan—”  No, _no_ , stupid, don’t give him—  “Liang,” she burst out with, then realized—too close to the prince’s name!  “Liang Fan, Your Highness.”

“Liang—no, don’t duck your head like that.  We’re having a conversation.  Fan is your family name?”

“N-no, Highness.  Liang Fan is my given name.”

“And what is your family’s name, then?”

She paused, then licked her lips, sweat breaking out on the back of her neck.  For a moment, she nearly gave a false name—but the orders, the scroll in her bag, they would show her as a liar, and she was in enough trouble as it was.

“Xiu, Highness.  Liang Fan Xiu.”

“Xiu.”  She could see the recognition slowly seep into his eyes and face, could even see his escort shift, out of the corner of her eye.  She braced herself for the inevitable comment about her family, about her father—

“So, Liang Fan Xiu, is there a reason that you just tried to kill your fellow soldier?”

Her eyes widened with horror, and she could feel the blood draining from her face.  “H-highness, I-I didn’t—”

“Then what, did you think you might catch my attention, try to impress me, with your tricks?  With brawling?”  He watched her for a moment, then slid off the horse, stepping closer.  She had to lock her knees to keep from stepping back as he crossed his arms and watched her consideringly.

“No, Highness,” she said faintly, wondering if she was going to pass out at Ling Yao’s feet.

“I have news for you, Liang Fan.”  He leaned in further, face serious, arms still crossed.  “I gave my orders for a reason.”

Orders?  What orders?  Frantically, she dug through her memories for anything that she might have missed—but she had just arrived!  Late.  She had arrived late, and snuck in without greeting anyone, or speaking to anyone about what she was to do—oh, ancestors, what had she missed?

“Everyone thinks that what _they_ know is the thing that will save Xing.  I’ve seen it far too many times today to count.”  Ling shifted his weight to his other leg, and there was just something about his casual stance as he berated her that made her fervently pray for the ground to open and swallow her whole.  “Whether it’s skill with a sling, or arms hard with muscle from kneading bread, or a skill with personal one-on-one combat situations,” he finished, voice taking an edge, “none of these alone will save _us_ in war.  Because there isn’t just a _you_ anymore.  You must think in terms of what will be useful for a soldier.  Part of a unit.  This includes _…_ ”

Lan Fan flinched as his voice took on a harsher tone, but instead of continuing to berate her, he turned to the man she had thrown, who was now trying to push himself to his feet.  Ling… “helped.”  He leaned over, grabbing the man’s shirt in his fists, and hauled him up with a jerk.  In doing so, Lan Fan realized he couldn’t be much bigger than she was.  Though the strength for his size was unexpected, it didn’t terribly surprise her—she likely could have done the same, had she not currently been quaking with fear.

“…Not attacking your fellow soldiers,” Ling snapped, glaring at the man, still held in his fists, and then at Lan Fan in turn.  “This is the first order you received when you arrived at the camp, and any further breaches will result in immediate expulsion.  Am I understood?”

“Yes, Highness,” Lan Fan practically yelped.  The other man’s response was surlier, but still respectful enough.

“Good.”  With a curt nod, Ling released the man, leaving him staggering.  “Now, you, Liang Fan.  You’re so eager to prove yourself.”  He stepped back, watching her.  “Draw your sword and show me what you have to offer.”

Now would be a very good time for the earth to swallow her.

But to refuse an order from a royal was unthinkable.  Raising a shaking hand to the hilt at her waist, she clasped it, praying that just this once, she was able to draw it out in one swift, smooth motion.

Unfortunately, her training with her grandfather had not involved larger blades.

She could sheath and unsheathe knives with ease, of course, and throw them with deadly accuracy; most small weapons, in fact, such as tonfa or war fans, she could handle quite skillfully.  But anything longer than her arm, she had barely touched.  Though her grandfather had mentioned on several occasions that he would have liked to have shown her such skills, they simply hadn’t the means to acquire such weapons as spears and axes, or any reason for keeping them.  And neither of them had wanted to touch Lan Fan’s father’s sword.

Drawing a sword was much more difficult than it seemed on principle, especially when she was so unfamiliar with the weapon.  It certainly did _not_ come out in one swift, smooth motion, instead at an awkward angle that left her jerking, several times, to pull it out of the sheath.  When it finally came free, it was with a sudden lack of pressure that, with her already on edge, startled her, loosening her grip, and sending it tumbling from her hand.  On instinct, she reached out with her left hand to catch it, but the very simple logic of _blade, sharp!_ stopped her mid-movement.

When Lan Fan glanced up, mortified, the sight of Ling, reaching out and stepping forward as if to stop her from grabbing the blade, a flicker of concern on his face, startled her out of her anxiety.

But only for a moment, as the two of them looked at each other, then down at the sword between them.

Ling’s sigh was not the lengthy string of disciplinary words that she had been inspecting.  It was worse.

He turned to the other man, who was watching Lan Fan with a small smirk on his face.

“And it’s attitudes like that, reveling in the failure of your comrades, that will get you killed,” Ling snapped coldly.  The smirk vanished from the man’s face.  “Name?”

“Wei Zhang, Highness,” he muttered.

“Show me better, Wei Zhang.”

To Lan Fan’s abject mortification, the older man reached across to his left side, gripped his sword, and drew it out in just the smooth, swift motion Lan Fan had been unable to achieve.

Ling watched the two of them for a moment, pensive, then straightened.  “Good.  Wei Zhang, you will take Liang Fan Xiu aside for the rest of the day and teach him how to draw a sword.”

 _What?_  She gaped at him, wanting to protest—and hoping that Zhang would, just a bit.  But he at least seemed to have more sense than that.  Was the prince so eager to have her out already?  She couldn’t—not—but what if it _had_ been about her name—

“And Zhang,” Ling continued, voice lowering dangerously.  “When I assess the two of you tomorrow, it will not only be his skill, but your abilities as a teacher and how well you work with others.”

Zhang glanced over at Lan Fan, his face unreadable.  “Yes, Highness.”

“Dismissed.”  Ling turned to climb back onto his horse, shooting an imperious look back at his escort.  If Lan Fan hadn’t been so anxious, she might have been curious.

She looked back over at Zhang, and she was sure her face was terrified _._

“This way,” he muttered gruffly, turning and heading over towards what she assumed were the training areas.

From behind her, she could hear Ling continuing to comment and critique; so she and Zhang weren’t the only ones to be brought forward.  The thought settled her.  Just enough to keep her from kneeling on the ground and vomiting right there.

Zhang finally halted, a respectable distance from the rest of the men, and turned, staring at her impassively.

What did he see?  A boy, too young to grow a mustache like his own, arrogant and a showoff?  A clumsy fool?  A girl playing dress-up?

The silence grew to be too much, and she opened her mouth.

“We don’t have to get along,” she babbled, barely remembering to pitch her voice lower.  “I know you don’t like me.  But—but he wants to see if we can work together with other people.  I swear, if we manage this, I won’t ever—you won’t ever have to see me again.  Or at least talk to me.  We don’t have to be friends, but if we don’t want to be dis—kicked out, we need to tolerate each other for a day.”

Zhang continued to stare, and Lan Fan wondered if she was ever going to stop sweating nervously—

“Sword needs to be oiled.”

At his gruff voice, she glanced down in surprise at the blade.  Of course it did.  That… that would make sense.

“We’ll take care of that.  Then we’ll see.”

—

By that evening, Lan Fan could draw a sword.

Not gracefully, or expertly, but passably, which, for the first day, Zhang assured her would be adequate.  And, when the two of them finally presented their results to the prince, his nod of approval told her that Zhang had been right.

Her first trial, overcome.  Maybe she _could_ do this.

Her dismissal from Ling Yao’s presence finally allowed her a chance to take in the breadth of the camp.  Rows upon rows of tents, some set up with military precision, some looking as if they might teeter over at the slightest gust of wind.  Wagons, covered and uncovered, stood along one area, and from what she could see, they contained every supply imaginable that an army might need.  Practice grounds, squares drawn out in fields where some men sparred, and an archery range further off.  Livestock—horses, mostly—snorted and stamped from a pasture to their side.  The entire encampment seethed with life, humanity and otherwise, and she had the creeping sensation that she might need to begin to worry about getting lost in the entire mess.

Lan Fan’s stomach took that moment to shriek its displeasure in being ignored.

She hadn’t eaten since a very, very quick break to shove some rice into her mouth that afternoon, and now that the smells of dinner were beginning to waft through the air of the camp, her body reminded her that such actions were absolutely unacceptable.  Only, in such an enormous camp, she had no idea where to even begin looking.

She wandered, of course, trying to see if she could track the source by her nose, or perhaps find someone to ask, but the few people who did make eye contact either looked quickly away or squinted suspiciously.  How many had seen her humiliation?

She had begun to wonder if she might have to give up on her quest for dinner that evening when a gentle hand tapped her elbow.

She turned at the touch, eyes wide.  Who was it now—

“I brought you some dinner.”

Whoever it was, the owner of the voice with the lilting accent, she could have kissed him.

“Thank you,” she gasped, accepting the plate of food and chopsticks.  Glancing around, she found a spare spot, mostly out of the way, and sat.  Her savior came over to sit next to her, and she gave him a glance-over.

The color of his golden hair wasn’t the only unusual thing about it: it was cut short as well, which she rarely saw even men do.  His eyes matched his hair, and she found herself caught in them, sparkling like the precious metal of a family treasure, set in a kind face with a gentle smile.  His skin, several shades darker than even the farmworkers who toiled in the sun, had a rich, golden hue to it as well—the hallmark of a desert-living people.

“You’re Xerxesian, aren’t you?” she asked, putting the pieces together.  Like the prince, he couldn’t be much older than she was.  He might even be younger.  Though his Xingese had been understandable, she had never heard such an accent before.

“Yes.”  He offered her a wider smile, and she had to wonder why he had taken notice.  Still, she wasn’t going to complain.  Without any further delay, she dug her chopsticks into the rice and began to shovel food into her mouth.

“You looked like you had a rough time today,” he continued, and she winced.

“You heard that?” she mumbled around a mouthful of food, hunching her shoulders.  Had anyone _not?_

“I did.”  He offered her a sympathetic smile to match his voice.  “It’ll be all right, though.  I saw everything he did after what happened with you, too, and after _those_ , no one will remember.”

She finished chewing a fish dumpling, then swallowed before clearing her throat.  “You did.”

He let out a chagrined laugh, picking at his own food.  He used his fingers where he could, she noticed, scooping the rice onto vegetables and taking bites rather than bothering with the chopsticks.  “I guess I did.  But I felt a little bad!  You looked terrified.”

She grimaced.  “Thanks for the reminder.  Wouldn’t you be, if one of your princes thought that you were trying to… sabotage the army?”

The young man looked a bit like he was trying not to laugh.  Perhaps Xerxesian royalty was different, then; she had heard that their royalty was made up only of one family, much smaller and more tight-knit, unlike Xing’s, which had what seemed like endless families, all with some amount of royal blood, trying to assert their power within the limits of the Emperor’s ultimate confines.

“I don’t think he did, honestly.  He was awfully hard on you.  He isn’t usually, not from what I’ve seen.”  He glanced down at her plate, eyes widening as she popped the last bit of fruit in her mouth.  “Gods above, you eat like my brother does!”

She shrugged, and it was in this that she realized one extremely cheering aspect to her disguise: as a man, she would no longer be lectured for the amount and speed at which she inhaled food.  “Was hungry.”

He laughed softly.  “That’s what he does, too.”  With a shake of his head, he returned to his own meal: he had only eaten a fraction so far.  “Anyway, about—your prince, I think it’s just… he has a lot to worry about, right now, training the new recruits—”

“He’s _what?_ ”  She jerked her head up, eyes wide.  She had simply assumed that… that he was here until the true army rode out, or something similar.  “But he’s known to be a brilliant strategist—some even say that he’s the emperor’s favorite, to be made heir…”

He shrugged.  “That’s just what I heard.  They say it’s just because Amestris has their own ‘brilliant strategist’—he’s over there.”  He turned and pointed, and Lan Fan craned her neck to get a good look.  Her own prince was there as well, talking to a slightly taller man whose dark hair was also cut short, though not quite as short as her conversation partner’s.  He had a wide face and narrow eyes, and though he shared the classification of elegantly unforgiving, he carried something of a heat about him, a flash of a smirk even with his mouth in a straight line, as opposed to Ling’s cool distance.  She also distantly noticed a much shorter young man, again, about her age, this one with reasonably long hair—even a bit longer, perhaps, though she couldn’t tell, as it was twisted into a braid—with similar dark skin and golden features as the young man next to her.  But the first man’s face, the Amestrian one, was the one that drew her attention.

“He’s Xingese, isn’t he?” she asked, confused.  He certainly had many of the features with which she was familiar.  Pale skin, yes, but that wasn’t completely unheard of here, and his eyes were a much more familiar shape than the odd ones she had seen on the few Xerxesians and Amestrians around camp.

“Roy Mustang?  Part Xingese, I think,” he mused, watching the man.  “The one next to him, the short one—though, don’t let him hear you say it—is Edris, one of our princes.”  He glanced back over towards Lan Fan, smiling wryly.  “Our king is still back in your Imperial City, but…”

“Good,” she said simply.  “He should be kept safe.  What would happen to your country without him?”

She watched him relax.  “Yes.  I suppose you’re right.”

“And...”  She hesitated, worried he might think her rude, but he had given her so much information.  “What is your name, may I ask?  Mine is…”

“Liang Fan.”  He smiled warmly.  “I heard.  Of course you can ask.  I’m Almas.”

Her mouth did her best to shape the foreign words: Almas, Edris, Roy Mustang…   _Tang_ at least had a Xingese pronunciation, but the rest…!

“You can call me Al,” he cut in hurriedly, a sheepish smile on his face.

“Al,” she said slowly, nodding.  That, she could manage.

“Nice to meet you, Liang Fan.”

He grinned, offering his hand, and she shook, a little bit of relief settling over her.  At least she had someone who didn’t hate her.

“Now, do you want the rest of my food?  I always get extra, because my brother always steals it, but he’s somewhere else, so…”

Not just someone who didn’t hate her, but a kind, generous, perfect soul sent from the heavens!  She nodded eagerly, and he offered his plate with a soft laugh.

This might not be pure hell after all.


	4. Chapter 4

Sword drawing skills excepted, Lan Fan learned a lot less combat in the first few days than she had expected.

She and the troops like her, fresh recruits from Xingese families, spent the entire first day learning to pitch a tent, prepare a bedroll, and pack judiciously.  She at least had the latter down fairly well; during the inspection of the things that the recruits had brought with them, she saw shocking things that others had tried to bring: elaborate jewelry, expensive clothes the likes of which she would have expected to see from the Jiangs, board games—multiple!—and even one person with paint and brushes.  The prince himself had gone through her bag, and though the collection of weaponry had raised his eyebrows, he had passed her over with a nod.

Tent pitching… well, at least she had been able to sleep in it that night.

Lan Fan had never fished in her life and never wanted to again, not by the end of that second day.  She understood the necessity, of course, and respected immensely the patience and skill of those who did it well, but sitting and waiting for something you never knew was going to come, without a single thing to divert you, was _torture_.  Like her mother’s work, she didn’t understand how anyone could do it for even a short time, let alone for a living.

When they finally moved on to combat, Lan Fan was relieved to have something that she was fairly certain would give her less trouble.  In hand-to-hand combat, she did excellently—though, to her mortification, their first day she sent an instructor flying; he wryly confessed to having allowed himself to become complacent after training so many farmers and merchants and fishermen.  Lan Fan, of course, nearly died of shame, but the instructor simply modified his approach instead of scolding her, and she even thought she heard a snicker.  When she glanced in its direction, however, the only person she could see was the prince, so that couldn’t be right.

With foundations on which to build, her sword fighting skill became passable, at least—but it wasn’t in the “fighting” area that she had trouble.  In one-on-ones, she won at least as many fights as she lost.

All her life, Lan Fan had trained to be a single line of defense, possibly with another person, but usually alone.  Protecting someone was completely different than fighting alongside them.  She knew very well how to maximize her advantage against multiple enemies, but give her multiple _allies_ …

Well, at least she had only whacked one of them upside the head with a staff just the once.

The announcement of the beginning of archery lessons left her with a semblance of relief.  Though it had never been her strongest area, she at least had some familiarity with a bow and arrow, and she was glad to be prepared for something.

She thought.

As she marched to the archery range with the rest of her squadmates in silence—though she had picked up on some names, she kept to herself, and didn’t really know any of them—army-issue bow in hand, she caught a glimpse of their instructor: blonde hair and blue clothing.

An Amestrian?

As she drew closer, she realized that was the _least_ of odd things about the instructor, and she could barely keep her mouth from completely hanging open.

“My name is Riza Hawkeye, and at the request of your prince, I am here to teach you archery.  You may call me Hawkeye.”

A woman!  A _woman_ was going to teach them!  Though still stunned, Lan Fan couldn’t contain her excitement and had to force down a grin at the thought.  Amestris allowed women in their army?  Or were they simply allowed to instruct?  If she asked, would this Instructor Hawkeye let her ask questions?  Lan Fan would need to be careful, of course, so as not to give herself away…

“ _Some wench who thinks she’s above her station…_ ”

Lan Fan inhaled sharply at the words, eyes wide in anger, and whirled, looking for the speaker.  What she was going to do, she couldn’t say, but after seeing Hawkeye’s professionalism, she couldn’t simply let such a comment go unchallenged.

An arrow whizzed through the air, so close to Lan Fan’s face that she could feel the breeze, and she dropped into an instinctive crouch automatically, prepared to dive for cover, or provide it where needed—

And saw Hawkeye with her bow lifted, the string still quivering, hand still open from where she had released the string.

When Lan Fan turned her head, nothing seemed to have changed… until she spotted movement.  A man, eyes as wide as plates, glanced upwards as his hair fell into his face.  He lifted his hand slowly, to feel around for the tie that had been holding it in his bun, but it had fallen to the ground, snapped by her arrow.  Lan Fan turned further to see the arrow in question, still quivering, sunk into the center a far-off target.

“I may be a woman,” Hawkeye said coolly, yanking every single person’s attention back to her, Lan Fan’s included, “but you will show me the respect I deserve, or you may find that arrow buried somewhere lower and much less pleasant.  Understood?”

Lan Fan still wanted, more than anything, to keep her family safe, to bring them honor.

But to bring people to their metaphorical knees like this, to command their respect while still openly being a woman?  If she were allowed more dreams, beyond that which was absolutely necessary, that… that would be right at the top.

—

“Liang Fan!”

She turned at the familiar voice, a faint smile tugging at her lips as she spotted Al’s form trotting towards her.  She might not know many other people, but Al had sought her out without fail every evening so they could talk over dinner.

“Al.  How was your day?  Did they have you training archery, too?”

“Oh, you know.”  Al waved the question off breathlessly.  “Busy, busy.”  He always seemed to avoid questions about specifics; Lan Fan had begun to wonder if it was a Xerxesian quirk, or just because he didn’t want to think about the hard work.  She never saw him around the training grounds, either; maybe they kept Xerxesians separate?

“I do know,” she offered wryly, tucking into her dinner.  Al had learned by now how much she ate—but only, of course, if there was enough.  Al had assured her that they were fine on supplies, though, so she didn’t worry too much.  “I’m _exhausted._ ”  Though her mock-complaining took on a dramatic tone as she flopped back against a tree, it came with a grin.  She could see herself improving, blossoming even, in a way that awed her after those long months of stagnation.  “They’re running us ragged!  I’m not sure I can deal with this for much longer!” she laughed.

“Hopefully at least until after we trounce some usurper ass.”

The voice behind her—also familiar, but in a very different context than Al’s—sent her leaping nearly a foot into the air, the orange in her hand flying upwards.  From above her, head tilted up slightly, she watched a deft hand reach out and pluck it from the air, drawing it back.  Tilting her head back further, she was greeted with the upside-down view of her prince’s smirking face.

Only Al’s dexterity—and likely his familiarity with her jumpiness—saved her plate as she shot to her feet, stammering what was supposed to be “Highness” but mostly came out as stammered babbling.

And he was _laughing._

It was this realization that quieted her, sent her stammering into silence, as she watched him chuckle.  Instead, of course, she felt her face grow hot.

“Goodness, Liang Fan.  I’m not about to behead you.  I hope you feel like you’re being run ragged.”  He tilted his head, a mischievous smile on his face, leagues away from the serious princeling she had seen on her first day.  “It means that you’re learning.”

“Y-yes, Highness.”  She made to bow, but a gesture from Ling stopped her.

“Please, sit.  Formalities are fine for royal courts, but places like these, we actually need to be able to finish something before the day ends.  I’d like to speak with you over our dinner?”

“Of course.”  It came out as a whisper, and she sat carefully.  A movement from behind Ling would have sent her shooting back to her feet if Ling’s hand hadn’t descended firmly on her shoulder.

“Prince Edris!” she gasped, staring, stunned, at the young man behind Ling.  He looked even shorter in person, with a scowl on his face that was framed by the golden bangs that escaped from his ponytail.  The length of their hair and the shapes of their eyes excepted—and they were both still somewhat odd—he bore an uncanny resemblance to Almas, their light-on-dark coloring matching perfectly.  Edris had features sharper and prouder than Almas’s, but the similarities were unmistakable.

The prince, however, she realized, didn’t have the _exact_ same coloring, not everywhere.  A mismatch of grey in his crossed arms drew her attention, and her eyes widened at the sight: he had a metal arm and hand!  From what she could see, it appeared to be as perfectly mobile as a flesh one, but…

Her knowledge of Xerxes unearthed the fact that this must be the automail for which they were so famous, and the secrets of which they guarded jealously.

“Ed,” the prince said flatly.  “It’s what Ling calls me.”  With a casual nod in her direction, he turned to Al.  “Hey, c’mon, let’s get outta here.”

Where had a prince learned such a casual manner of speech?  Had he picked up his Xingese from commoners?

“But brother—!“

The remainder of Al’s sentence was completely lost on Lan Fan at those first two words.

Brother?   _Brother?_  It could be—some sort of Xerxesian title, or form of address, perhaps?  But… not with the way they were glaring at each other.  There was far too much familiarity there.

“You’re a prince?” she asked faintly, unable to help herself, as she stared up in horror at Al.  Almas.   _Prince_ Almas.

“Now look!  You’ve gone and scared him!”  Ed sighed, shaking his head.  “Look, I wanna talk to you about something.”

Al glanced helplessly at Lan Fan.  “Please don’t be scared of me.  I _like_ talking to you.  I would hate to lose your friendship—”

Ed cut in, but this time, Lan Fan didn’t understand a word.  Xerxesian, she soon learned, was a beautiful language, but utterly incomprehensible.

Al answered back in the same language, tone still one of clear protest, but Ed’s response was insistent—and then slow, as if he were implying something.

Al’s expression changed from one of exasperation to one of epiphany.

“I—right, Liang Fan.  I’ll see you tomorrow night, then?”  His tone was so hopeful that Lan Fan had to nod.  “I’ll go do… I’m going with brother.  Bye!”  With a wink, he turned and allowed himself to be led away.

Ling sat down across from her, but she stared after the two of them for a few moments.

“He’s a prince,” she said finally, voice a little shell-shocked.

“More of one than his brother, that’s for sure.”  Ling shrugged and dug his chopsticks into his own meal; the same, Lan Fan noticed, that the rest of them ate.  “Though Ed’s all right.  Just a headache to deal with.”

Lan Fan swallowed, glancing down at her own food and wondering if it was polite to eat in front of him.  “Should… you be telling me this?”

Ling shrugged again.  “You’re not going to repeat it.  You can eat your food, you know.”

She obediently reached to her plate—and realized that Ling still had her orange and was, in fact, now peeling and eating it.  With a sigh, she started in on her meat.

“So,” he began around a mouthful of food.  “I’ve noticed you have some trouble working with others.  That sort of thing is important, when you’re in an army instead of just fighting alone, as I’ve noticed you’re used to.”

Lan Fan froze, waiting for the discipline—

“Would you like me to work with you on that?”

She turned slowly, trying to see if she could interpret the expression on his face, gauge whether or not he was joking, or if this was a test, or… whatever it might be.  But he continued eating casually, as if he had simply been a merchant asking her the time of day.

“Why?” she finally asked.

“Because.”  He shrugged, popping another segment of her orange into his mouth.  “I can see how you want to improve, and I wanted to offer you the opportunity.”

“But…”  She licked her lips, swallowing.  “I don’t understand why you want to.  After how… after what happened when I first arrived, I don’t know why you want anything to do with me.”

He glanced over at her in surprise, the orange segment caught between his lips in a way that might have been comical had she not been so anxious.  “That first day?  Liang Fan, please!  That’s not all you have to offer.”  He returned to his food, and she relaxed slightly, returning to her own as well.  “I’ve been watching you, actually.  And I’m impressed with how far you’ve come already, especially how you dealt with that other fellow on your first day.  You have a lot more potential for growth, and I’d like to help you realize that.  We’re all here to grow, even myself.”

She couldn’t help grinning down into her food.  “Really?”

“Mhm!”  She could hear the sounds of his chopsticks scraping the bottom of his plate as he tried to get the last bits of rice.  “I’ve actually been working with some others until now, but I wanted to take my time approaching you.”

By now, she was watching him intently.  “And why is that?”

“Because.”  He tilted his head, watching her back, a considering expression on his face.  “You excel in several areas.  I wanted to determine what you most needed.”

As he spoke, his chopsticks inched towards the dumpling closest to the edge of her plate.  Seeing his gaze flicker in that direction, she idly smacked his hand out of the way when it got too close.  “You already ate my orange.  And that’s… working… with others?”

“As a unit,” he confirmed, nodding.  “You have talent, Liang Fan Xiu.  I’d like to foster it.”

For the first time in Ling’s presence, her face split into a grin.  “I would be honored, Your Highness."

He sighed, sounding pleased.  “I look forward to it!”

It was only some time later, after he left and Lan Fan was returning her plate to be cleaned, that she realized.

_She had smacked Prince Ling Yao!_

Though he didn’t seem inclined to execute her over the offense, she did wonder if her heart might give out from the terror of the belated realization.  It truly was with only the greatest of miracles that she managed to get back to her tent in one piece.

—

Though Ling’s casual approach had stunned her the day they had eaten together, within a few of their personal training sessions, she understood the wisdom behind it.  Though he did maintain some of the professional demeanor from their first day together, his willingness to smile gently and guide and explain carefully when she didn’t quite catch onto something worked heaps better than what she had expected, stern looks and harsh criticism and snide commentary on her abilities.

When she brought this up to Al—Almas!  Xerxes’s prince, who still insisted on eating his dinner with her!—his answer surprised her with its simplicity: “Some people work better with a stern commander.  Some work better with encouragement.  If he says he’s been watching you, he obviously wanted to make sure that how he teaches you is best for _you._ ”

Lan Fan… couldn’t really bring herself to believe this, that royalty would go out of his way to make _her_ experience easier when he could have simply continued on his usual route with no inconvenience to himself.  But she also couldn’t very well say that sort of thing in front of royalty, even if it was Xerxesian royalty.

One very important thing that she did notice: though Ling’s escort accompanied him nearly everywhere, he didn’t make an appearance in any of their training sessions.

Her prince wasn’t the only person who took note of her progress, either.  To Lan Fan’s joy (or terror; she wasn’t quite sure which), Riza Hawkeye herself approached her after wrapping up a group training session to ask where she had learned to shoot.

“My—my grandfather, ma’am.”  She had to resist the urge to call her “Lady Hawkeye,” but suspected that might earn her a fierce stare; she knew too many of the men might do something of the sort to be pert, though for Lan Fan, it would be in pure sincerity.

“Instructor Hawkeye, or Hawkeye is fine.”  When Lan Fan nodded, she continued.  “Are your family soldiers?  Or warriors of some kind?”

Lan Fan froze, swallowing.  Hawkeye didn’t know, did she?  She decided to answer the question as neutrally as possible.  “No, but my grandfather used to guard noble families.”  She avoided mentioning the ‘personal guard’ aspect; it would open more questions than she wanted to answer.  “My mother… no, she doesn’t…”  It took several moments of warring with herself to ask the question, but finally ask it she did.

“So, it’s true then, that women are allowed to serve in the army in Amestris?”  When Hawkeye didn’t answer immediately, each word practically stumbled over the others in her hurry to explain herself.  “Not that I think it’s a bad thing!  In fact, I know… I know there are skilled women warriors.  But if they were to try to enlist, they would be laughed out at the best.  At the worst…”  Well, that hit too close to her fears, and she didn’t want to speak of it.  “I’m sorry,” she finished quietly.  “I just wanted to know.”

Hawkeye watched her for a good, long time, her inscrutable expression leaving Lan Fan wilting with each passing second.  Did she think Lan Fan was questioning her abilities?  Or perhaps trying to be snide about how Amestris was inappropriately allowing women out of their places?  The thought left Lan Fan sick to her stomach; to have someone she so respected think that she was _perpetuating_ those ideas…

“Amestris wasn’t always like this,” she finally said, voice surprisingly gentle.  “Nor was Xerxes, though Xerxes made the change before us.  They seem to have been the first to take the steps of progress; it wasn’t until our last government… _changed_ , that we were finally recognized equally.  Women, I mean.”  Hawkeye tilted her head.  “In Xing’s case, I think it’s simply a case of perhaps waiting for a ruler who will take those steps.”

Lan Fan reddened a bit; she could also hear the unheard implications, that theirs was the only remaining country of the three with an older ruler, one still steeped in conservative mindsets.  Though she didn’t know much of Wu Yao, she knew that royalty could be notoriously difficult to sway.

“But either way,” Hawkeye finished briskly, offering Lan Fan a kind, sincere smile.  “I think it’s worth fighting for, making it an issue at the forefront of everyone’s minds, if you can find a way to do it.”

She nodded, and her eyes were probably shining, but she couldn’t bring herself to care.  “Absolutely.”

As Hawkeye walked off, Lan Fan took a deep breath, almost dizzy from the conversation, watching after her.

“Don’t get any ideas, kid,” a man drawled, the Amestrian accent probably the thickest she had heard yet.  When she turned, she spotted a man, tall and with a strong jaw, hair somewhere between the deep gold of the Xerxesians and the pale yellow of most Amestrians.  And, of course, cut short.

“She’s got her own sweetheart in another unit, and she’s prettier than any of us.”

“Prettier than you, maybe,” came another voice, but this one female.  “Maria’s gorgeous, don’t get me wrong, but I mean, _I’m_ here.”

The man snorted, wide mouth twisting into a smirk, and he glanced over at the speaker, a tall woman with curly brown hair pulled back into a long tail.  “Sorry, Rebecca; you’re not exactly at the forefront of my mind in that department.”

Rebecca—what was it with these Amestrian names?!—laughed at the expression on Lan Fan’s face.  “Pick your jaw up, boy.  He wasn’t being rude.  We just might as well be siblings.”  She elbowed the man.  “I’ll let you off the hook.  This time.”

Lan Fan, of course, couldn’t pull her eyes away from Rebecca, ears ringing with the information.  Riza was not only a woman in their army, but in a relationship with another?  And here, right in front of her…

“You’re also a soldier?” she asked Rebecca.

“Hell yeah, I am.  And a real one, too, not like Jean here—”

“Hey!” the man named Jean ( _Jin_ , Lan Fan noted with relief, was something she _could_ pronounce) protested, elbowing her.  “You’re such an ass.”  To Lan Fan, he said, “I train horses for the Amestrian army, but I _can_ fight.”

“Of course,” Lan Fan said a little faintly.  “Well, I… I think it’s wonderful.  That you can do that sort of thing.”  She nodded to Rebecca.  “But I have—I have to go… get lunch.”

Jean gave her a lazy salute, and Rebecca waggled her fingers as Lan Fan turned, making a beeline for the food tent.


	5. Chapter 5

The clouds ghosted across the half-moon as Lan Fan crept across the grass, towels clutched to her chest as she held her breath to avoid making any more noise than she had to.

She hated this part, but another day of wiping herself down with a wet rag simply wasn’t going to cut it.  She needed a bath, a proper one, and tonight, the camp seemed quiet enough that no one was going to follow her to the river.

She let out a deep breath as she gained some distance from the tents.  A pause to ensure that she couldn’t hear anything besides the normal sounds of nature, and then she was stripping off her tunic, yanking off her sarashi.

She let out a relieved noise as she exhaled, tilting her heads back.  While the bandages worked effectively, they weren’t comfortable by any stretch of the imagination, and having her breasts bound was very different than simply wearing them for support.

Finally divested of her restricting clothing, she dove into the river, popping up with a pleased gasp as she grinned.

A quick scrub of her hair and important areas later, she could still see no sign of anyone, so she allowed herself a few moments of indulgence.  The water, though somewhat cool, still retained its warmth from the midsummer weather, and it was pleasant after a long day of sweating.  She lay on her back, idly paddling around, arms drifting out at her sides as the cool water flowed past.

It stunned her, still, how she had managed not only to uphold her disguise, but begin to excel at the tasks she was assigned.  Ling had told her today that he was _proud_ of her, that he was _honored_ to have her as an asset in his unit!  She allowed herself a grin, a giggle even, at the thought—her prince was _proud!_ He thought her skills were worth bragging about, from what she had heard, sly mentions of how he may have dropped her name to elicit some jealousy.  And, though he of course had his own duties to attend to, he had made it a habit to drop in and eat lunch or dinner with her once every few days, at least.

She sank into the depths of the water, closing her eyes, a soft smile on her face.  She had grown to look forward to it, too, the subtle humor, the almost ridiculous tone in his voice sometimes…

Her head crested the water slowly as she rose to take another breath, and a splashing noise sounded from behind her.

She whirled, eyes wide, sinking down immediately and crossing her arms over her chest, praying that the murky water and dim light covered anything… noticeable.

“Liang Fan!”

Oh.  Oh no _._

Ling, as bare naked as he was the day the midwife brought him into the world, strode towards her with a grin on his face.

She knew she should have looked away.  She _absolutely_ knew it.  But she hadn’t had the opportunity to see Ling without anything, or even with his shirt off—not that she had been looking for an opportunity!  Not in the slightest!—and, completely objectively, she had to admit that… it was certainly a sight.

The muscles in his arms had to rival her own, and she did admit that it was something of a shame that they weren’t visible more often.  Just to drive home the point that he had strength and training, of course.

She yanked her eyes away, face heating, and cast about frantically for her clothes.

Ling finally waded in waist-deep to the water—thank goodness—and Lan Fan glanced cautiously over towards him again…

He was heading in her direction.

“Bathing on the late shift, too, hmm?  I can’t blame you.  Too much to do during the day.  Good; I’ll have some decent company after all.”

Decent…?  Lan Fan swallowed, inching away slightly, glancing back towards the shore.

Oh _no._

One, two, three, four, _five_ men followed Ling into the water.  As if Ling weren’t terrifying enough, Edris and Almas, as well as _Amestris’s most skilled general_ , Roy Mustang himself, strode in as if they didn’t have a care in the world.  Two more followed, Jean—who had a towel around his waist, thank goodness—and another man who she didn’t recognize, short and with black hair, of whom  she was able to avoid seeing anything terribly revealing by turning her head away before he managed to get his pants off.

“Is this royalty’s bathing time?” she asked, voice strangled, as she sunk further into the water.  “I… I can go…”

“No, please.”  Ling offered her a friendly pat on the shoulder, and she jumped slightly.  “Don’t leave me alone with them!”

“Besides,” Edris scoffed, combing his flesh hand through his hair to untangle his braid.  “ _Roy_ isn’t _royalty._ ”  He shot a glare over his shoulder at the first unfamiliar face and its slight Xingese features.  “Something about outdated—”

“I did not call it outdated, Edris,” came the cool voice—perfect Xingese, Lan Fan noticed, slightly impressed—”I called it ‘unfit for the needs of Amestris.’  Which it is.  I respect your dynastic traditions— _both_ of yours,” he finished, nodding at Ling.  Ling snorted slightly and exchanged a wry glance with Edris and Roy; Lan Fan had to admit curiosity as to the story there.  “I expect you to respect our elective system.”

“Yeah, whatever.”  Edris shook his head, and backed up slightly, watching Roy critically—and bumping smack into Almas.

“Careful, brother,” he sighed longsufferingly, and carefully navigated his way through the growing crowd over to Lan Fan’s side.  “Are you all right?  You look a little traumatized.  Sorry to burst any sort of ideals you might have about the people who rule countries.  Turns out, they’re the most ridiculous of the bunch.”

“I see,” she replied faintly, watching the rest of them.  Her clothes were on the riverbank, and now six men stood between her and them.

“Liang Fan,” Ling chimed, voice teasing.  “You’re staring.  What, like what you see?”

Lan Fan jerked back so quickly that she nearly popped out of the water, and had to dive back down to avoid spilling her secret.  “W- _what?_  No—I mean, you’re very—that’s not to say—”  Oh, ancestors, had he just—he _had!_  How was she supposed to—and now she couldn’t stop looking, because _he_ certainly wasn’t ducking down in the water—no, he was stretching up and peering down at her, and she had a very up-close view of Ling’s muscled chest, abdomen, and arms.  And his neck.  It surprised her, the elegance of his neck, the starkness of the muscle and tendon beneath it…  “I just don’t think that’s—appropriate, is all, that you should be saying that to me!”

Ling huffed.  “Oh, please.  I’m free of that asshole of an escort; let me relax for once.  He’ll throw a conniption if I’m too informal, but we’ve seen how far _that_ gets me.”  He tilted his head.  “We can start over, you know, now that I’m not with my babysitter.”

“Babysitter?”  Lan Fan asked, lifting her head a bit.  “He’s the reason you…”

“A bit.”  Ling shrugged, extending his hand.  “I’m Ling.  Nice to meet you, Liang Fan.”

She shook, a little bewildered.  “Hello, Hi—ah, hello.”

“You’ve met Almas and Edris, of course, and this is Roy, and…”  He glanced at Jean.  “Some guy I don’t know…”

“Hey, is it _really_ the smartest thing to be saying that about the guy who’s training your horse out of rearing?” he shot back dryly.

“His name is Jean, Highness,” she murmured quietly, glancing at him.  Though Rebecca had said he wasn’t a soldier, she could see that he had scars across his chest; maybe he had been injured in war and moved onto less dangerous pursuits.

“See?  Even he remembers!  And I only met him the once.”

Lan Fan cleared her throat, glancing around, debating asking about the horse…

“Ling,” Almas interjected dryly, reaching out to shove at him gently.  “I think you’re traumatizing Liang Fan.”

“Fine!  I’ll go traumatize your brother, then.”  He whirled, batting his eyelashes, and Lan Fan’s jaw dropped as he asked, “What about you, Ed?  Do you like what _you_ see?”

Lan Fan felt—was this a surge of disappointment?  What in the world—of _course_ Ling had only been playing around.  Still, when Ed squawked and leaped backwards, when Roy stepped up next to him and put his arm between Ling and Ed, eyes narrowed, she felt the tiniest bit of relief.

“I was just _kidding_ ,” Ling grumbled, mock-offended, sulking back over in Lan Fan’s direction—and then throwing an arm around her.

Oh.  Oh, no, no no no no—

She ducked further down into the water in a panic, crossing her arms even more tightly.  When she glanced down, nothing seemed to be visible, but the wrong movement on Ling’s part, and in front of so many, could send everything tumbling down.

“Besides, Liang Fan, you’re the only one who’s _really_ worth the effort here.”

She sank further into the water, this time to hopefully cool off her burning face, and… well, everything below it that so very inconveniently turned red when she was embarrassed.  “I’m sure I’m not,” she mumbled into the water, which at least concealed what she needed.

Of course, she was so busy staring at that water that she completely missed the second arm sneaking towards her torso.  She did not, in fact, notice it until Ling’s fingers tickled her ribcage.

Multiple things happened at once, all influenced by the following factors:

  1. The abject horror of how close Ling had come to touching something quite different bludgeoned her like a cannonball.
  2. She was already quite twitchy and anxious from being in such a perilous position.
  3. Lan Fan was very, _very_ ticklish.



The shriek that rang through the trees sent a good deal of birds, bedded down for the night, flying into the air, and left the entire party cackling.  Ling, however, was only able to cackle for a few more moments, because Lan Fan—well, she would later blame it on the adrenaline, and her instincts, and the playful, mischievous air that _Ling_ had started, not her!

“You _brat!_ ” she yelped, kicking a leg out and catching her prince thoroughly in the calf.  With a waterlogged scream that rivaled hers and a magnificent crash, he went under, his hands the only parts visible as he flailed around abovewater, trying to get his footing.

This, of course, turned the entire party from cackling to downright howling with laughter, and—well, for a moment, Lan Fan didn’t care about consequences, didn’t care about what Ling’s revenge was going to be like when he finally got free.  No, she just cared that all of this extra training had increased her flexibility even more than usual, and even while scooting further away from him, she was still able to hook his other leg and send him spluttering back into the river the moment his awful stupid fancy princely hair broke the surface.

The second time said princely head crested above the water, she decided to take pity on it.  Revenge wasn’t really worth execution for assassination, no matter how much said royal deserved it.

And, she did have to admit, when he finally did manage to struggle up, coughing, clutching a rock for support, his bedraggled bangs did make him look a little pathetic.

Lan Fan slipped halfway behind the rock as well, putting it between the two of them and glaring in his direction.  He just stared, looking startled and almost… entranced.  Pleased, somehow.  She wasn’t sure what to make of it.

“I guess I deserved that, huh?” he croaked.

Lan Fan wasn’t sure how many “Yeses” joined in her chorus, but she caught at least two Xerxesian accents and one perfectly Xingese.

“I don’t suppose you’d let me make it up to you, do you?”  Ling peered further around the rock, which, of course, just sent Lan Fan sliding further back, still mostly out of his view.

“I don’t know if you can,” she replied primly.  A small part of her was still absolutely horrified at the fact that she was speaking to royalty like this, and that other royalty was hearing it, but besides actually killing one of them she didn’t think she could get in any deeper trouble, and, more importantly, she was _winning._  “I can’t think of anything you could do to possibly make up for your callousness.”

“No!” Ling gasped in mock-horror.  “Please!  Jewels!  Riches!  Nobility!  A place as my most trusted general?”

Lan Fan couldn’t stop herself, not at the wounded expression on Ling’s face.  Her face split into a grin, and she dissolved into laughter.

Laughter, she quickly learned, was hard to pitch into something deeper, and she earned herself a choke for her efforts.  This left her coughing between laughs, and when she glanced up, trying to catch her breath, Ling smirked.

“Or I could just show you a hell of a good time.”

She gasped with some combination of horror and amusement, shoving a wave of water at him and leaving him soaked once again.  “I think you sound far too cocky to be trusted.”

“He’s got you figured out, Yao!” Jean called from a distance, and though Lan Fan couldn’t see the man, she could hear the grin in his voice.

“How dare you!  I’ll have you know, I’ve received _plenty_ of compliments on my abilities.”

“And no criticism?”

“Never!”

Lan Fan continued to lead Ling on a merry chase around the rock, too caught up in the energy of the conversation to really think twice about what she was saying, but the words seemed to leap straight to her mouth without passing by her brain for approval first.  “Then I’d say you’re definitely too cocky.  How many poor souls, too intimidated by royalty to tell you that your technique is _awful_ , have you imposed upon?”

The crowing laughter in the direction of the rest of the onlookers had her smirking, and Ling drew back for a moment, looking impressed and, inexplicably, incredibly charmed.  She narrowed her eyes at him, waiting to see if he could come back from _that._

“I suppose you’re right _,_ ” he sighed, forlorn.

_Hah._

“So, clearly, since you’re the only one with the balls to tell me what I need to hear, it sounds like you would be a wonderful candidate to help me with some constructive criticism.”

Jean’s shouted reply of, “Hey, you don’t need balls to do _jack shit!_ ” sent the rest of them into laughter again.

This was a good thing, because Lan Fan’s blood had just drained from her face.  Oddly enough, she felt flushed in other areas, but she chalked that up to—to embarrassment.

“Oh my fucking _god_ , Ling, leave the poor guy alone!” Ed finally broke in, reaching out to grab Ling by the back of his hair with an automail hand.  Lan Fan had to wince in sympathy even as she sighed in relief.

Ling wasn’t the only person being dragged away, either: when he was no longer solely the person in her field of vision (just due to his proximity, of course), she spotted Jean bent over, yelping as the shorter black-haired man, who hadn’t spoken much and Lan Fan had yet to meet, had him by the ear.

“Kain!   _Kain!_  What the hell!”

“Do you want to cause a diplomatic incident?” this “Kain” sighed, though his exasperated tone had some fondness in it.  “This isn’t Amestris!  You can’t talk to royalty like that!”

Roy snorted.  “On the contrary; I think that’s _exactly_ how royalty need to be talked to.”  He turned and winked in Lan Fan’s direction.  “Very good work.  Liang Fan, was it?  You should spend some more time around Edris here—ow!”

This time, it was apparently Roy’s turn to be kicked by the recipient of his possibly-not-entirely-unwanted attention, though honestly, both he and Ling could use a little bit of work in the “admirer” roles.

“Actually,” Al cut in, sounding entirely too innocent.  “I think it might be just a certain personality type that needs to be put in their places.”

His brother shot him a _very_ aggrieved look at the apparent betrayal, but Al’s words reminded Lan Fan that she did have an ally in this mix of troublemakers.  She slid over in the water, keeping low, and reached out to tap his arm quietly.

“Al?”

“Hey, are you okay?  I’m sure Ling didn’t—”

She silenced him with a quick motion of her hand.  “I need to get out of the water, but…”  She swallowed, looking away, praying that he wouldn’t ask too many questions.  “I don’t want them to see.”

Al’s expression betrayed  confusion, but he nodded without any questions, and Lan Fan sagged in relief.  She supposed that having a brother with such striking and visible scars might go a long ways towards precluding some questions, and Al’s decency as a person went the rest.

“Hey, Ling!” Al called.  “By the way, Havoc says that your horse wouldn’t be such a terror if you didn’t sit like a sack of potatoes.”  He glanced towards his brother.  “But at least you’re not too short to be riding one.  You should hear the things he’s said about what Ed should be doing.”

Ling’s horrified gasp of “I am an _excellent_ rider!” was cut off by an infuriated shriek as Ed stormed towards Jean, fist raised as if he were about to crack some heads.  Ling followed, Al winked at Lan Fan, and Lan Fan bolted _._

Snatching up her clothes, she hurried towards camp as she wrapped herself in a towel.  Already, that night’s conversation was beginning to replay in her head, and she could feel the heat rising in her cheeks.

Oh, she was going to wake up tomorrow and _pray_ that she had dreamed this!

—

Marching orders came two days later.

Ling had brought her extra breakfast again.  Not only had their… escapades had no negative consequences, but Ling had apparently decided that Liang Fan was his new best friend (inasmuch as that wasn’t a negative consequence, anyway; Ling was something of a handful).  She did have to wonder if he was trying to make it up to her, that evening, but she didn’t know how to tell him that he didn’t have to.  She had… enjoyed herself, actually.

Still, she would never turn down more food, especially when given someone who knew supply levels and whether or not eating such volumes would negatively impact their rations.

(“They planned for me and Edris,” he had assured her.  “You’ll be fine.  Though,” he had continued, eyeing her plate, “you might have both of us beaten.”)

The two of them were fending off each other’s attempts to steal food when the galloping of a horse’s hooves jerked both of their attention upwards, in the direction of the noise.

When Ling left his half-finished food on his plate to meet the rider, Lan Fan immediately followed, scarfing down what remained of hers.  She hadn’t seen such a serious expression on Ling’s face in quite some time.

“Your Highness,” the rider gasped, vaulting off his horse, a scroll in hand.  “Father’s forces have been spotted on the border.  They’ve invaded!”

Ling grabbed the offered scroll, skimming through it hurriedly, lips pressed together tightly.  Lan Fan watched, breath stilled, as did the others who had gathered: Al, Ed, Roy, Jean, Hawkeye, and more.

“All prepared troops are to report to the front lines immediately,” he finally said, voice neutral.

“Then General Mustang will lead them,” a cool voice responded.  “And our own with him.”

Ling’s head snapped up, eyes narrowing, mouth opening as if to protest.

“I was specifically assigned by His Imperial Majesty to determine if your troops were ready for battle, Highness.  From what I have seen, they are not even _close._ ”

Over the course of her developing friendship with Ling, Lan Fan had seen more and more of Au Chu, his “advisor” and escort.  Though she knew she should never speak or think ill of an imperial representative, Lan Fan was not impressed in the slightest with his frequent snooty, haughty, and inflexible adherence to formality.

“My troops have performed beyond my expectations, Au,” Ling replied, just as coolly.

“I’m sure they have exceeded everyone’s,” Au replied, sounding bored.  “But regardless, I have my doubts over whether they will be ready before this war is over.”

Lan Fan could feel Ling seethe next to her, and she straightened, standing behind him, ready to provide whatever support his argument needed, whether with words or with fists.

But it never came.  It wasn’t until he turned away, towards Lan Fan’s direction, that he allowed the bitter expression to cross his face.

A sigh from another direction tugged her attention away, and her eyes landed on a group of Xerxesians.  Ed and Al were at the front, and by their expressions, especially Ed’s, Lan Fan did not envy the woman who stood in front of them, golden hair tied back in a tail, skin a couple shades paler than it should have been.

(Au Chu, Lan Fan noted, scowled, likely at the sight of a woman in such a position.  Lan Fan scowled right back.)

“What is it, Roksana?” Ed asked, voice wary.

Roksana bowed slightly, still looking uncomfortable, but she stood her ground.  “Your father’s orders still stand, Highness.  You are to remain with Prince Yao’s unit.  Your brother is to ride with us.”

Ed scoffed, turning away.  “This is fucking bullshit!”

“Brother…”

“Those are orders,” Roksana repeated quietly, keeping her voice steady.

Ed let out a sigh, turning to face Roy.  “And _you_ get to go too?”

Roy, unlike Ed, handled the situation with grace, as Ling had.  Mostly.

“I see the logic behind it,” he began slowly, glancing between the three princes.  “Until we know that every body is needed, the heirs, such as you and Ling, are best kept out of danger.  Lending your expertise to further train these troops is a valuable use of your time.”

Au looked a bit like he had swallowed a lemon, shifting from foot to foot, and Lan Fan understood why.  Ling was _not_ an heir, and this was something understood in Xing.  Trying to be named the heir, certainly, though the way things were shaping up, Ling might never get a chance to stand out the way one needed to.  Still, Au would never dare correct such an important foreigner.

As Au looked away, Lan Fan caught a quick but significant glance between Ling and Roy.  A misunderstanding, then?  Or something completely different?

“In a show of alliance and solidarity with you, Prince Yao, I will be leaving some of my most trusted people here to continue in your service.  As you have been working with my best horse trainer, he will remain here, as well as a handful of others.  Train well.  We will await your arrival.”

The crowd began to disperse, and Lan Fan spotted Ed slinking off to glare at Roy.

“You’d better come back, bastard.  And take care of my brother,” she heard him mutter, and quickly turned her face away as dread sank into her heart.

Those riding out eventually merged into one group, Ling’s much smaller unit returning to camp.

Lan Fan caught sight of Ling’s face, then, the oblique, wary, almost resentful expression that followed the leaders who were preparing to leave.

Was this what it meant, then, to be forced to wait?


	6. Chapter 6

The camp, bereft of the majority of its inhabitants, seemed to be comparatively deserted.  Over the next several weeks, Lan Fan and her fellow recruits continued to train as usual, though without instructors such as Hawkeye, even their efforts couldn’t give it the life it had once had.  By the time the sun set, Lan Fan didn’t want to look around, not with how empty the place was—one more reminder that they had been left behind.

She packed her sword, gathered her water flask, and headed for her tent.

“Liang Fan?”

She turned to see her prince standing there, head cocked, watching her carefully.

“Highness.”

He sighed softly, the ghost of a smile playing at his lips.  “You know you can call me Ling.”  At Lan Fan’s raised eyebrow, he sighed again and continued.  “Anyway.  I was wondering if you would like to have dinner in my tent tonight.”

She stared for several moments, too startled to think in response, let alone actually respond.  Her?  Lan Fan Xiu—or Liang Fan Xiu, who was still a Xiu—invited to dine privately with royalty?   _Personally_ invited?

“Or, if you’d rather not,” Ling began hurriedly, but Lan Fan finally managed to yank all of her scattering thoughts into a single pile (at least, until they rolled away again).

“No!  That’s fine.  I mean, yes.  I would love to.”  She offered him a tentative smile, inclining her head slightly.  “You simply startled me, is all.”

“Well, then let me make it up to you?  Though, goodness, you do seem to startle a lot.”

She wrinkled her nose at him and stuck out her tongue, and turned her back to his startled laugh to go put her things in her own tent.  He followed, but she swatted him away; there were a few things in there that she didn’t want to answer questions about (such as the solutions she had brought along for her monthly bleeding), and she didn’t trust him not to poke about and ask questions.

Finally, in a fresh outfit and with her hair retied into its bun, she armed herself with her usual knives and trotted off to Ling’s.

When she stepped inside, a mountain of food awaited her, and she _beamed._

Neither of them even made an attempt at conversation as they tucked in with their chopsticks.  Though technically formality would have insisted, both of them were too practical—and metabolically superefficient—to even think of it.

“Good shit,” Ling murmured, and though her eyebrows rose at the profanity, she had at least grown used enough to him that her jaw didn’t downright drop.

“It is excellent, yes,” she sighed, pleased, as she set down her bowl of rice, the latest in too many to count.  “The seclusion is nice, too.”

“I have to agree there,” Ling shot back with a smirk and a wink, and Lan Fan choked slightly.  She hadn’t meant—!  But then his smirk faded, and she bit back the protest to the obviously glib comment to listen to what he had to say next.

“I can’t look at it, not right now,” he continued, voice quiet, expression serious, something that now sat oddly with her.  “Not so empty, not after…”

She nodded, glancing down at her bowl, glad she had stopped eating for now.  She wouldn’t have been able to swallow, not around the lump in her throat.

“Have you ever felt,” Ling asked suddenly, and she glanced up to see that he was staring, not at her, but somewhere off into the distance over her shoulder,  “that you’re stymied at every possible avenue?  Like you’re meant for something so important, that you fit so _perfectly_ , but the universe is conspiring to keep you from it for some stupid reason or another?”

She couldn’t bite back the laugh, and at his startled expression, she realized that it was the first time she had ever let her mask slip, ever let him see any of the bitterness that she kept buried.  Though she had best not go into the depths of it all, not if she wanted to keep her head.  Quickly, her mind raced for alternate explanations, something that she could use to fend off the obviously incoming barrage of questions she could see in his face that _didn’t_ have anything to do with her frustration, not with her gender, but how other people dealt with it.

“It’s your family, isn’t it?” he asked suddenly, and she inhaled sharply.

Well, he wasn’t… _wrong,_ not really.  And he had unwittingly provided her just the reasons she had needed without forcing her to lie—she seized onto the words and refused to let go.

“That people judge me on?  That keeps me from doing anything great with my life?” she answered quietly.  “Yes.”

Ling reached over to where a teapot had been heating over a small fire and poured them both glasses, which brought a small smile to Lan Fan’s face.  “I’ve heard your name, at court.  Not openly, of course.  No one speaks of your family, not blatantly.  But there isn’t anyone who doesn’t know the Xiu family.”

“I’m glad that they can’t forget us, then, and continue to provide them with a constant source of amusement, even after we’ve been cast away,” she replied, voice tight, and she could tell from Ling’s wide eyes that she had shocked him with her bitterness as much as she had shocked herself.

Ling set his cup down slowly, watching her.  “Liang Fan, may I ask what happened?  From your mouth, and no one else’s.”

She, in contrast, held the cup close to her face, doing her best to hide in it as she stared down into its depths.  “My father.”

“I have heard it had something to do with him.”  When she shot him a look, he lifted his hands in surrender.  “Right.  Your story.”

She took a deep breath, sipping at the tea for a moment, before she began.

“It was back when Amestris first invaded.  Before I was born, though my mother was pregnant at the time.  My father… he was a soldier.  Not like me, not recruited like this.  Our family specialized—specializes—in combat.  But while my grandfather and I learned the art of guarding, of subtlety, of assassination, even, if royalty should have need of it, my father took a different path.  He joined the imperial army.

“He was no general, not incredibly high-ranking, but he did well, and he had a command of small men.  But he was the first in our family to do so, the first to step out of the role of protector, and we… my grandfather thinks he wasn’t prepared for it, not for what it truly required of a man.”

She kept her eyes on the tea in front of her.  Now that she had started, she wasn’t sure that if she stopped, she would be able to continue again.

“The first battle against the Amestrians was horrible.  I wasn’t alive then—I don’t know if you were?”  At Ling’s shake of his head, she nodded.  “But I’ve heard stories, and I’m sure you have.  The worst defeat, they say, in Xing’s history.  We lost so many men, and not just to death.  We lost them to desertion.  To dishonor.”  Her fingers tightened on the cup, and it took every breath of effort in her body to force the next words off of her lips.  “My father was one of them.”

At Ling’s sharp intake of breath, she nodded.  “Bad enough, for the average soldier.  But leaving the men under your command leaderless?  Many of them died _._  And more than that, he was a _Xiu._  A member of a family sworn to serve not just to death, but beyond.  Sworn to _royalty._  And he as good as threw it back in their faces.  He was executed for it, when he was found out, and we were banished, the entire family.  Though, at that time it was only my father’s father and his wife.  My grandfather and mother.  I came along a few months later, as I’m told.”

“And now you’re here, in the same spot he was, and you can’t just not make his mistakes.  You have to prove yourself, to overcome what he did.”

She closed her eyes and nodded.  “Yes.”

Several moments of silence passed before Lan Fan dared open her eyes again.  Ling was watching her, the expression on his face not one of judgement, but of concern.

“I never knew the whole story,” he said quietly, finally.  “I heard things, of course.  People talk about Fu Xiu, sometimes—your grandfather, yes?—and his skill, but also how he was dishonored by his son.”

She took a deep breath, nodding.  She had expected nothing less.

She did _not_ , however, expect Ling’s next words.

“Your grandfather guarded my mother, you know.”

Her head snapped up, eyes widening in surprise.  “He what?”

“Fu Xiu.  My mother still talks about him, too, but not in the same way.  She’ll hear nothing but good about him, and she was _furious_ at his banishment.  The best, most loyal guard that she’s ever known, she told me.”

“Oh,” she said softly, eyes wide, staring back down at the ground.

“How is he?  Is he still…?”

“Alive?  Yes,” she said in a rush.  “At least—I hope so.  That’s why…”  She swallowed, then looked back up at Ling.  “Several years ago, back when I was still a child, he took on a job that he shouldn’t have.  We needed the money.  They expected him to be able to do the job of twenty men.”  She smiled crookedly, wryly.  “Ten, certainly.  Fifteen?  Maybe.  But not twenty.  He took a sword to his leg.  Gashed it right up the outside.  And that was only the worst of his injuries.  He hasn’t been able to walk without a cane since.”

Ling’s eyes widened.  “And when the Emperor’s order went out…”

She nodded.  “I couldn’t let him go.  Not to be slaughtered,” she finished, voice quiet, but firm and steady.

“You are an amazing man, Liang Fan,” Ling breathed.

Her head jerked back up, eyes wide, face flushing again.  “W- _what?_ ”

He smiled slowly, and— _no_ , it wasn’t fair how fond it was, how—how perfect, how sincere, not expecting a thing in the world, just wanting to make a friend (were they friends?  Or rather, were they _just_ friends?) happy, wanting to see Lan Fan smile.

And so she did, though much more hesitantly and nervously than Ling likely ever had in his life.

“You’ve just been through so much.  I can’t even imagine.  You’ve kept up the guarding, even after all that, too?”

She nodded, still reeling from the compliment.  “Ungrateful merchants, mostly.  And then laundry, between jobs, when I won’t—when the merchants realize that being guarded is more than a status symbol.  That it means you need to commit to someone sharing your life.”

Ling let out a scoff of disbelief.  “People really think that it’s some sort of game, to stop and start as you please?  I know I’ve had someone like that around most of my life.  And they think it’s some kind of…”

“People want to mimic royalty.  And nobility,” she replied, voice quiet.  “The reality doesn’t always live up to the fantasy.”

Ling shook his head, sipping at his own tea.  “I’ll tell you what the fantasy’s like.  It’s a rat warren mixed with a pack of hungry tigers.  Do you know how many assassination attempts I’ve had to fend off?  Yes, I’m a strong candidate for being chosen as the Emperor’s heir, but he has dozens of sons, and even the illegitimate ones think that they have a chance at getting chosen if I’m disgraced or out of the way.  Not a single one of them would shed a tear if I were, oh, to trip and fall on one of my recruits’ swords.  Or off a rearing horse and snap my neck.”  This time, it was Ling’s bitterness’s turn to come through, and her eyes widened.

“You had to fight them off yourself _?_  And your horse…”  Had been undergoing training.  An attempt at sabotage disguised as a gift he couldn’t refuse, perhaps?  “Have you no one to defend you?  A guard?”

Ling snorted.  “Not one who I can trust my siblings haven’t gotten to.  It’s safer to watch my own back right now.  If I’m named heir, the number of people who would dare go against me shrinks exponentially, but right now, I’m a tempting target.”

Lan Fan burned at the thought that a bodyguard might even _think_ of harming someone to whom they had been sworn.  What sort of dishonorable place was the Imperial City?

“And Au Chu?  He’s not…”

Ling snorted.  “Please.  He can’t fight at all.  No, he’s not a guard.  He’s a babysitter.  Ostensibly an Imperial advisor, meant to assess my progress and ensure that our troops are well-handled.  But I’m sure I don’t need to tell you—”

“That he’s in _someone’s_ pocket,” Lan Fan muttered with a scowl, not realizing that she had interrupted Ling, not with how natural their conversations had become.

“Atta boy.”

She shot him a look, wondering why it was just now that she was putting the timeline of their births into place.  The talk had gotten her thinking, and she had heard that he had recently celebrated a birthday…  “Aren’t I older than you?”

He smirked.  “If your mother was pregnant during the Amestrian invasion, yes.  I was born nine months after.  Still outrank you, though!” he finished cheerily, beaming, and she rolled her eyes.

“Why do I put up with you,” she sighed, turning away as if put upon most egregiously.

“Mmm, because I feed you?”

“And steal my food.”

“I try.  Your skills are too great for your starving prince to outmatch—”

“You’ve never starved a day in your life.”

“Not true; I got stuck in a tree once, when I was nine, and missed lunch.  It was so far out that no one could hear me yelling for help.”

She couldn’t help bursting out with a peal of laughter at the image of Ling clinging to a tree and yelling for help.  In her mind’s eye, she could only see Ling as he was now, but she was sure that he had been just as cute at age nine.  Or almost, at least.

“You should laugh more,” Ling hummed, and she glanced over at him, startled.  “It’s a good sound on you.”

“Hah,” she barked out, looking away again—and something flew at her, something she barely spotted from the corner of her eye.

“Catch!”

With a gasp, she lifted her hands, and something small and round smacked into her palms.  Blinking down at it, her mind took a moment to process that she was holding an orange.

“I owe you,” Ling chuckled with a smirk, and Lan Fan couldn’t help but crack a reluctant smile.

“Marksmanship that even Instructor Hawkeye would be proud of,” she teased.

“Now, _that_ is high praise.”  Ling beamed.  “What an amazing woman.”

Lan Fan’s eyes lit up.  “Isn’t she just?” she gushed.  The first day I met her, someone tried to give her mouth for being a woman.  She shot the topknot right off of his head!”

From the expression on his face, the gleam in his eye, he seemed to feel the same way about Hawkeye that she did.  Interestingly enough, she noted that he was one of the first people not to tease her about her ‘crush,’ just share mutually in her respect—and even, oddly enough, a little bit of the wistfulness.

“You’re kidding,” he breathed, grinning.  “Tell me more?”

—

Lan Fan felt the air of the camp sag over the next week.  Ling spent less time with her and the others who he had been getting to know and more time in his tent, ostensibly detailing reports or arguing with Au Chu.  His hands-on training time decreased, Lan Fan’s included, and though she had improved significantly and probably didn’t need it anymore, she missed it.

Others apparently did as well, though with much less understanding than Lan Fan.  Though many of those left behind worked even harder at the slight, determined to prove their detractors wrong, others took the abandonment differently.

“This is what we get,” she heard a man mutter as she was practicing fighting forms, stretching as she did so.  She froze to listen.  “Led by a spoiled kid who doesn’t know what he’s doing.  Left behind chewing on our asses.  I guess we should have expected it; he’s not even old enough to grow a beard, let alone lead men into battle.”

Lan Fan gasped quietly, eyes wide, whirling to face the speaker.  As she strode towards him, she heard a noise of assent.  Another man, across from the first, rolled his eyes.  “Probably afraid of risking his own neck, really.  You know how royalty is.”

“How _dare_ you!”

The two men’s heads snapped up as she stormed towards them, nearly forgetting to lower her voice in her fury.

“How dare you speak ill of His Highness!” she snarled, shaking slightly.  Had they no concept of loyalty, of actually using their brains to pay attention to the atmosphere, to all of this politicking, against which Ling fought every day for them and people like them?  “You should be ashamed to say such things!”

One of the men, the first one, glanced down at her like she was a mushed bug under his shoe.  This time, however, she _seethed._

“Please, boy,” he drawled, snorting.  “You’re younger than he is.  Too wet behind the ears to know how life really works.  Keep your mouth shut around your betters.”

“I do,” she shot back, returning the look of disdain.  “That has nothing to do with my speaking to you now.”

That earned her a growl as he stepped forward, and she shifted her weight slightly, moving one foot out to the side, though not moving her body yet.  She was already warmed up, and if he was stupid enough to dash forward in a frontal attack, it would be a simple matter to—

His friend cut off her train of thought, moving in quickly at an angle to swing at her head.  She would admit, later, that he knew more or less what he was doing; he was at least ten years her senior, with clear fighting experience to match.

He had not, however, been fighting since he knew how to walk.

She followed the foot she had moved earlier, whirling out of the way without even needing to block.  A sharp jab of her elbow to his ribs earned her an angry yell, and she shoved him into the way of the first man, who had lunged towards her.  They tangled together, tripping onto the ground.

Something slammed into her from behind, leaving her wheezing and knocking her to her hands and knees.  She spotted the foot aimed for her stomach soon enough to roll partially away, but it still glanced across her ribs, and she hissed in pain.  A third!  The dishonorable bastards!  The first man who had attacked had apparently recovered and now lunged for her; lucky he did it from his knees and not from a standing position, otherwise she might have been seriously injured as he tackled her.  She snapped her head forward, cracking her forehead against his temple, and though she groaned in pain at the impact, he let go, gasping in pain, and rolled away.

_Get to your feet, get to your—_

She let out an infuriated shriek as a hand tangled in her hair, ripping the bun free from its tie.  The remaining man—she didn’t even know who was who at this time—tried to come after her from the front again, thinking that she was undefended.  Though the man holding her hair had her off-balance, she used it to her advantage, letting him hold her upright by her hair while she snapped a foot upwards, slamming her heel into his nose.  The ache in her scalp was worth it to watch him stagger backwards with a howl, blood streaming.

The one grabbing her hair slammed her to the ground again.  He had started the petty fighting, so she turned and bit, hard, onto the first piece of flesh she could reach.

He screamed as he tried to yank her loose, and she took the advantage, still not letting go, to drive a punch straight into his gut.  A swing with his other hand solidly clocked her jaw, but she couldn’t let herself stagger—lowering herself, she charged forward, head ramming into his already injured stomach and knocking him to the ground.  She cocked her fist, driving it into his face, ignoring his returned blow to her chest as best she could, and lifted it again—

“That’s enough!”

Two arms hooked neatly under hers, yanking her off of him, and she snarled and struggled, trying to get free.  But whoever it was couldn’t be one of the previous two, not with the skill with which he was holding her.  She couldn’t get out!

“Liang Fan!  Stop!”

The familiar voice snapped her out of her anger, and she stilled, glancing around wildly.  The two she had trounced still lay on the ground, groaning, and Ling, across from her, held the man she had just been entangled with, who was spitting a bloody tooth onto the ground.

With a swallow, she turned to see who was holding _her_ , and the neutral face of Wei Zhang stared down at her.

She turned away, even if it meant that she had to face what would undoubtedly be the disappointed face of her prince.

His impassive face looked over them all, and she flinched slightly.

“If we release you, will you be able to act like proper soldiers?” he asked coolly.

She nodded, mortified, and the other man grumbled his own assent.  A moment later, Ling let go, and Wei Zhang released her arms as well.

“I want to see the four of you at my tent,” Ling snapped.  “There, I will speak to you all separately and determine what your discipline will be.”

As he turned and strode in that direction, Lan Fan prayed she wouldn’t vomit.


	7. Chapter 7

Ling left Lan Fan for last.

She wondered if that was part of his punishment, making her sit and sweat with an aching head and face and side, wondering if after all of this, her second infraction meant that she was to be sent home immediately.

After far too long to be comfortable, the third man finally slunk out, looking thoroughly chastised, shooting Lan Fan a glare as he headed in the direction of the tents.  None of the three had said a word, so she had no idea what to expect.

As she watched, Ling’s head peered out, and he made a motion for her to come inside.

Taking a deep breath, she stepped forward.

The tent flap closing behind her cut off the light; appropriate, given the way her heart dropped.  Ling turned to watch her.  Standing at attention, she clasped her hands behind her back, standing straight, shoulders back, prepared for… for anything.

Ling’s face lit up.  “That thing with the kick?  That was _awesome._ ”

…Maybe not.

“Hi… highness?” she squeaked, eyes wide, freezing.

“You know, when he grabbed your hair, and you did the…”  He leaned back and flung his leg up into the air in an absolutely ridiculous fashion, and her mouth dropped open.  “That was _amazing._  I can’t believe you thought quickly enough to just… wow.”  He sighed, crossing his arms, a giant grin on his face.

“What is happening?” she asked slowly, glancing around to see if perhaps Ling had been switched out for an imposter.  “What about discipline for my actions?”

Ling waved his hands.  “You and I both know that you had nothing to do with starting that fight.  First of all, three people on one, something has _got_ to be off.  Second, Wei Zhang told me who threw the first punch.  Third…”  He leaned forward to peer at her, smirking, and suddenly he was very, _very_ close.  She leaned back with a startled gasp.  “I really want to know what they said, and if I’m mean, you probably won’t tell me!”

Lan Fan sagged a little, quiet for several moments, processing his words.

“Liang Fan?”

She glared up at him, mostly to mask her relief.  “I might just decide not to tell you because you scared me to death!”

He gasped, as if this were the worst slight imaginable.  “No!  Was this your true plot all along, to see my demise?  I _must_ know!”

She raised her eyebrows, turning her head away.  “That’s exactly what this is.  Everything in the entire world?  It revolves around you.”

“Oh good; you do validate me so.”  With her head turned away, he was able to sling an arm around her shoulder and steer her to the cushions.  “So, fine.  It wasn’t about me.  They didn’t tell me, though, and if I had ordered them they probably would have just made something up.  So?”  He poked her side with the hand draped around her, as he sat them both down, earning him a small smack.  “Please?”

“Well, since you asked nicely.”

She could feel him straighten.  “Really?”

“No.”

Ling let out an exasperated moan, leaning into her, and she snorted, trying not to smirk.  “Why _not?_ ”

“Because it’s funny to see you like this.  I’m starting to see the appeal, why you annoy me so often.”

“You dare say such things to your prince?  Do you forget who I am?”

“With how often you go on about it?  Not likely.  Not even possible.”

“I have oranges?”

She paused, as if to consider.

“I’ll give you two!”

“…I suppose I could tell you.”

Lan Fan certainly didn’t expect for Ling to snatch up her hand, bring it to his mouth, and press a kiss to it, dirt and all.  At _that_ , she froze up again, eyes wide.

Ling didn’t even seem to notice.  “Well?”

She swallowed, licking her lips slightly, and thought back to what they had said.  The memory seemed to suck all of the wind out of her lungs, the lighthearted atmosphere out of the tent.

“They… they said…”  She sighed, reaching up to comb her fingers through her hair.  “That you were to blame for being stuck here.  That you just… wanted to save your own skin, or that you didn’t know what you were doing, so that’s why we’re stuck… here.  Waiting, while the rest of the army…”

“I see,” he said quietly, and she fell silent.  “I’m not too surprised, to hear such things.”  But then he turned, and she turned as well to meet his eyes, and they were close again—he really needed to stop doing that.  “And you got into a fight with them over me?”  Though his expression was still rather serious, a soft smile played around his lips as he watched her.

She huffed softly and looked away.  “Well, their behavior was unacceptable!  And they started the fight.  I just told them to shut up.”

“Still!  Defending my honor.  I’m touched.”

“As much as you have it, anyway.”

“We were having a _moment_ , Liang Fan.”

Lips trying to form a smile once again, she turned, and he still hadn’t moved, eyes meeting hers.  They were so different from when they had first met, when he had been nothing but seriousness, before she had discovered the complexity underneath that surface.  How had it taken her so long to realize?  How had she missed the playfulness that hid in every movement of his face, in the gleaming of his eyes, that sparkled through if she looked at him just so?

And still, beyond that—or perhaps alongside it—was the seriousness, his commitment to his country, and his cunning as a leader.

Deep in her thoughts, she didn’t realize that Ling’s hand was moving until he cupped her cheek.

“Liang Fan…”

She watched his eyes flutter closed, inches away from hers, and let hers do the same as he tilted his head, pressing their lips together.

Lan Fan had never thought much about kissing.  It had never been much of a priority, really, with providing for her family and avoiding entitled merchants’ sons.  But when _Ling_ kissed her…

She realized she might have been missing out, just a bit—but that also would have meant that she would have been kissing people besides Ling, and that seemed unthinkable.

His lips were softer than expected, with nothing of the rough eagerness that she might have expected from him.  She pursed her own lips slightly, doing her best to kiss back, inhaling softly through her nose.  He guided her through it, humming softly, and the slight twitch of his lips in a smile drew her own into the motion as well.

She hadn’t expected the smell, most surprising of all: a hint of human, a whiff of sweat, and faint threads of some spice or incense through it all.  They all curled together, sliding through her veins and into the pit of her stomach, and it left her shivering.

His other hand reached around to cup the back of her head, hair still down from earlier, running his fingers gently through it.  With a little hesitation, she returned in kind, placing her hands tentatively against his back, feeling the muscles there, and running them up gently until her arms wrapped around his shoulders.  He was _warm_ , surprisingly so, even in the late autumn air, and she pulled him a little tighter.

And then his hand settled on her waist, and a huge dose of reality slapped her across the face.

With a gasp, she leaped back, and she didn’t realize that she was shaking slightly until she tried to steady herself.  Mouth open slightly, cheeks burning, she glanced up at Ling.

He tilted his head, the expression on his face no more than mildly perturbed, though she could see a faint flush on his face, too.  “I’m not _that_ bad of a kisser, am I?”

“No!” she burst out, traitor mind suddenly pulling her back to their conversations about technique and abilities, leaving her flushing even further.  So he hadn’t been completely blowing smoke out of his… well, anyway.  “I just… that was… I wasn’t expecting…”

“Should I not have?” he asked gently, and it was that _,_ the concerned, attentive tone, that drew her protests to a screeching halt.

“That’s not… what I meant,” she managed, swallowing, hard.  “It was… it was nice.  I liked it,” she reassured him hurriedly.

“Good,” he replied, as if that solved every problem in the world.  “And I like you.  So should we continue?”

Lan Fan inhaled sharply.  “It’s not that simple!  We—I—is this just some—”  She had heard stories, everyone had, about men who took temporary lovers of other men during wartime, simply for the physical relief.  Ling hadn’t struck her the type to do, so, but…

“I didn’t bring you here for sex.”

Though the word left her wincing, the candidness of the reply did provide a huge amount of relief.  “Oh.”

“I brought you here because I had to, for one.”  The smile on Ling’s face was calming, pleasant.  “But more than that, I enjoy your company.  Even if you decide that what just happened shouldn’t again—”

“I didn’t say that!”  When Ling quirked an eyebrow, she hunched her shoulders slightly.  “I just… you have to get married.”

Of all the things she could have said, all the words that could have come out of her mouth, it had to be _those._

Judging by the expression on Ling’s face, he hadn’t been expecting them either.

“Thinking that far ahead,” he said slowly, “it’s possible.  That I might have to marry for an alliance.  But you might have noticed, neither Xerxes nor Amestris really have any eligible candidates—”

“But—but heirs, and—Ling, I can’t—”  She shook her head.  “I shouldn’t have said anything.  I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right.”  He shrugged slightly.  “We can talk about something else.”

She exhaled, trying to think of—of something to say, something that wasn’t, _I’m a girl and if you found out, you would be duty-bound to have me executed._

“I... you have a life,” she said quietly, “back at court.  I’m common.   _Disgraced_ and common.  When this is over, I’ll go back to my life, and you’ll go back to yours.”

“Not if I have anything to say about it.”  He leaned back slightly.  “Do you really think that I’m going to let you go back to _that?_  Unless you want to, which I can’t imagine you do.”

“And what else am I going to do?” she asked tiredly.

Ling stayed quiet for a few moments, watching her.

“You can come to the Imperial City with me.  There are a few people I’ve been keeping an eye on, who I think I’d like to have at my back, when I return.”  At her expression, he lifted a hand.  “You don’t have to give me an answer now.  Just think about it?”

Lan Fan just nodded, doing her best not to look too terrified.  She already was thinking about it, and it made her very glad she was sitting down.

“You could meet my mother,” he continued, looking pleased.  “I know she’ll want to meet you, when all of this is over.  Fu Xiu’s grandson?”

“My family is still my family,” she reminded him gently, trying to redirect the conversation.  “I don’t think we would be welcome.”

“After this, if we play it right, we’ll—you’ll be welcome wherever you want.”

The word “play” left an uncomfortable sensation in her stomach.  “Is this some sort of game?”

Ling let out a small, humorless bark of laughter.  “At court, everything is a game.  All of this?”  He motioned in the direction of the tent door.  “I told you why we’re stuck here.   How there are people who don’t care about making sure that our armies are properly supported as long as they can make me look bad.  So yes, it’s a game to them, but I have to play it to get anywhere.”  He lifted his head, and the dead seriousness she had seen from him on that first day had returned.  “I have to use an anxious horse, or risk offending someone very important over the fact that I rejected their ‘gift.’  I have to sit on my thumbs and allow Au Chu to drone on about how we aren’t prepared to go into battle, or risk offending my father by implying that the advisor _he_ chose is unable to make competent decisions.  But that doesn’t mean I’m just going to give up.  I’m going to play their own damn game and _beat_ them at it.”  He leaned forward, eyes gleaming, and beneath the seriousness, she could see a hunger, one that startled her, sent a shiver through her.  She didn’t know what to make of it.  “If they stack the Xingese deck against me, I’m just going to look outside of it for help.  They don’t have the advantage of being able to make foreign alliances.”

Though Lan Fan had grown up away from the intricacies of court—and was now extremely glad of it, given what Ling had told her—some things began to piece themselves together.  “The Amestrians.  Mustang left some of his trusted men behind.  And the King of Xerxes left his eldest son in your care.”

Ling nodded slowly.  “That comment he made, about the heirs staying, and including me in it?  That wasn’t a cultural mistake.  That is, it was, but it was deliberate, and I owe Mustang for it.”  He snorted.  “And he won’t let me forget it, I’m sure.  Anyway, I have visible foreign support, and the other Xingese generals can see that.  No other candidate for heir does, not in that capacity, and if what Edris and Almas have told me of their father is true, I don’t have to worry about the ones back at court currying too much favor with him.”  He smirked slightly.  “Though I wish I could be there, to watch him lead them in a merry chase.  It would be nice to see them as exhausted as they make me sometimes.”

“So,” she said slowly, hoping that she was interpreting the implications incorrectly.  “You don’t… need to actually go into battle to get what you need?  This was just an exercise in alliances?”

The smirk dropped from his face instantly, and the expression of horror on his face, ironically, settled her anxiety slightly.  “No!  No, not at all.  That’s just me making the best of a terrible situation.”  He shook his head vigorously.  “And it’s in making those alliances that we’ll be _able_ to go into battle.”

“We—but you said Au Chu wouldn’t—”

“Au Chu,” Ling began neutrally, though that sparkle in his eyes had returned, this one with more than mischief in it—with outright chaos in it.  “If he receives correspondence from the main army insisting that they need reinforcements urgently, will have no choice but to let us march.  That will solve the most pressing problem.”

“But how do you know…”  Lan Fan trailed off as she remembered the significant look that Ling and Mustang had exchanged.  “…Oh.”

“Yes, exactly.”  Ling looked quite pleased that she had put together the pieces.  “In our history, Xing has never had much in the way of international allies.  Almost twenty years ago, with the first Amestrian invasion, we began to realize that we needed to change.  The smart ones did, anyway.  Too many of the more stubborn ones think that our isolationist policies need to stay in place, but this has only solidified the need for international relations, and my father is realizing this, too.  I’m the only one who has taken the time to cultivate those international relationships.  Everyone else seems to think it was a waste of time, but when this is all over, Xerxes’s and Amestris’s support will be worth a hundredfold what it used to be.  What everyone else still thinks that it means.”

“And you’ll fight alongside them.”  Lan Fan’s head spun; was this the sort of thing Ling had to keep in mind, every moment of every day of every year of his life?  This plan didn’t have a hint of amateurishness to it.  Ling knew what he was doing, and he had done things like this before.

“I’ll fight alongside them,” he repeated, “and you all, the troops that I have trained with my own time and my own methods, are going to stand out as phenomenal.  I’ve made sure of that.”  He met her eyes levelly.  “You have all exceeded my expectations, and I am beyond proud of you.”

The words hit her right in the gut, knocking the air out of her, and she couldn’t remember how to breathe, but Ling didn’t seem to notice.

“At that, beyond saving Xing and Xerxes, which I do want, of course, I’ll have proven myself enough that my father will _have_ to take me seriously as a candidate.  If it doesn’t get me the position itself, and it might not, it will at least make me a favorite.  And,” he finished dryly, “it’ll get Au Chu out of my hair.  When troops that he’s been claiming are unprepared and unskilled do as well as you all will?  Only a fool would think that he didn’t have an ulterior motive, and my father is no fool.  Even if he thinks that ulterior motive is just to keep himself safe, it will at least get him away from me.  Whatever happens afterwards is not my concern.”

Lan Fan sat in silence for several moments, processing not just the words, but the motivations behind them, the fact that he trusted her enough to bare all of this to her without even a moment of hesitation.

The trust, and the knowledge how grievously it was misplaced, dug the knife further into her gut.

“You’ve thought all of this through,” she murmured, wondering how she could redirect his talk, how they could go back to—to talking about food, or martial arts techniques, or _something else._

“My mother didn’t raise a fool,” he declared proudly.  “As Empress, she never did like the practice of concubines, and some of this directly has her input.  Everything else, well, I learned indirectly from her.”

“Court seems like a very dangerous place.”  She kept her voice neutral, hoping that this would misdirect him away from his plans—

“It is.  And that’s why I want you there, after all of this.”

…Damn it.

“I’m not sure I’d fit in,” she began carefully, scrambling to put together a million reasons why this was a terrible idea while still avoiding the real one.  “I wasn’t raised there, or—”

“But that’s exactly why I want you with me.”  Ling shifted, leaning forward, that fire of determination burning in his eyes.  “You’re uncorrupted.  And I don’t use that word lightly—it poisons almost everything it touches.  It’s poisoned _me_ , even; you can tell, I’m sure, even if I try to use that for the good of Xing.  I want to bring back the notion that the emperor serves his people, not the other way around, and as you can imagine, it’s not a very popular opinion.  So until I can do something about it, I have to keep it a secret, except for to the few people who I trust most.”

_Damn_ it!

Lan Fan inhaled, holding her breath, while he continued.  Maybe if she didn’t breathe, she wouldn’t cry, wouldn’t shake.

“I can’t trust anyone who comes from there, not completely.  Maybe my mother, but even then, she has her own goals, and if I turn out to be as useless as some of my brothers, I have no doubt that her support will vanish.  But you, Liang Fan, I know you, and now that I do, I know very well that no one has had a chance to bribe you, or blackmail you, and that even if you were offered those things, you would never accept.”

“Of course I wouldn’t!”

Ling chuckled softly, reaching out to cup her face again, though this time he didn’t lean in, and this time she turned into it, just slightly.  “And that’s why, even if it’s only as friends, I’d like you to—”

She couldn’t bear to hear it one more time.  If she had, she couldn’t trust herself not to sag, to confess, to bare herself and her sins and weep before him and wait to be punished.  So she did the first thing that came to her mind.  If she were pressed, she would say it was only to silence him, but somewhere inside her, selfishly, she wanted to do it, too.

She reached out, wrapping her arms around his neck, and drew him in, kissing him again.

As he tilted his head, leaning into the kiss and coaxing more from her, she couldn’t stop thinking about if things had been different, if her father hadn’t—if their family hadn’t been cast out in disgrace.  She couldn’t stop thinking about what she might have had, about how everything Ling had just told her might have been able to come true, in some respects.  How she might have even been raised with him, his most trusted and loyal bodyguard, how he might have had her to turn to before all of this.

It would crumple, when this was over; she would go back to her home, vanish into obscurity, and Ling would go on to gather his allies, to rule Xing.  He wouldn’t remember her, not really, except perhaps to think occasionally of the soldier he kissed once, back during the war.  She would spend the rest of her life trying not to wish or wonder how things could have been.  Might have been.   _Should_ have been.

For now, she allowed to enjoy this taste of that something, the gentle pressure of Ling’s lips against hers, the warmth of his arms around her back, that faint and familiar smell as she breathed him in.  His fingers carded through her hair, and in a moment of boldness, she pulled his hair tie out, sending it cascading loosely past his shoulders.  Something fluttered in her stomach, up through the rest of her, something doing cartwheels and backflips and spins in a way that left her breathlessly giddy.

The rumble in his chest as he laughed against her mouth sent shivers through her, and she gasped.  She mapped it out with her fingers: his face, his hair, his arms and back and everything else she could reach.  She had no illusions about the possibility that she might never be able to do this again, and the thought squeezed the ecstatic feeling in her chest to the point of pain.

When they finally pulled back, panting, she idly wondered if the flush on his face was as deep as hers.  Probably not; hers was likely much worse, judging by the heat on her cheeks.  Or maybe it was just the air in the tent that was so hot?

Ling reached out to trace a finger down her cheek.

“Think about it, Liang Fan,” he murmured, a fond smile on his face.  “Please.”

She nodded shakily, knowing that she would do no such thing.

“Now, you should probably go before someone decides to come check on us.  You look shaken enough, so you should have no problem convincing everyone else how terrible of a punishment I meted out.”

She let out an unconvincing laugh that she had to bite back to keep from becoming a sob, nodding.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?”

She nodded again, not trusting herself to speak, especially not when Ling reached out to squeeze her hand as they both stood.  Offering him a watery smile, she turned and bolted out of the tent as quickly as her feet would take her.

She managed to make it to her own, smaller and more humble, pitched with only her own two hands and with only so much privacy, before the first tear leaked out.

She had always tried not to dwell on “what ifs” or “maybes.”  She knew that her position left her no time for those, that it would only drive her mad.  But now, with so much of those “what ifs” thrown in her face, they spun around in her head, refusing to leave her.  How things might have been different if her father hadn’t done the dishonorable thing.   _If I hadn’t done the world the inconvenience of being born a girl._

How Ling would know the truth, and how she might not be a dishonorable liar herself.

Burying her face into her pillow to muffle any noises she might make, she curled around it, into as small of a ball as she could manage, and sobbed.


	8. Chapter 8

[ ](http://nimohtar.tumblr.com/post/149333173498/artwork-for-the-wonderful-story-adversitys)

_Art by[Nimohtar](http://nimohtar.tumblr.com/)_

  


* * *

  


Three days later when the horse galloped into camp, Lan Fan watched it without surprise.

Its rider made straight for Ling and Au Chu, leaping off, and handing over a scroll to each of them before someone ran up with water for him and his horse.

Lan Fan watched them read, keeping her distance.

The orders to pack, that they were to go on the move, came shortly after.  The relief, with an undercurrent of nervousness, permeated the entire camp.  While the notion of being sent into battle wasn’t a pleasant one, Lan Fan had learned that sitting around waiting for it, unsure when the orders would come, was even worse.  A bit like lancing an infected wound: pain, yes, but a relieved sort of pain, no longer aching and waiting for something to go wrong.

Ling found her after the camp was mostly packed, a proud smile on his face.

“Are you ready, Liang Fan?” he murmured.

She took a deep breath and nodded.  “As ready as I ever will be, I think.”

He looked off into the distance.

“To give you a background of the situation, this Father figure has put together an army of what appear to be mercenaries and zealots.  Much of the loyal Xerxesian army escaped with its king and sons, but there are some still remaining.  Or who were remaining.  Though the larger portion is now folded in with the Xingese forces, that remnant is a surprise we are going to use to our advantage.  We have news of Father’s Xerxesian army being split into two parts.  The main part of it and ours are at a standoff, but scouts report that a large outpost has been established by a separate force that overtook a stronghold to the south, behind the Xerxesian army.  We’re to take it from behind, run our operations from there, and attack the army from where they’re not expecting in a two-pronged attack.  If we time it right, stall for a while, then that remaining Xerxesian force, the one on our side, will be able to sweep over what’s left after we attack Father’s army.  They were too small to launch a head-on attack just by themselves, while in Xerxes, but this way, they’ll be able to wrap this up quickly.”

“Sounds… simple,” she finished uncertainly.

“Oh, it won’t be.  Strategies never go as planned, not really.”  He shrugged.  “That’s why you need to learn how to adjust in the midst of things.  I’ll see to it that that part is handled properly.”

She nodded seriously, watching him, _willing_ him to know of her faith in him.

He sighed softly, watching her for a moment, then smiled crookedly.

“And I just want you to know that I’m proud of you.  I’m so proud of all of you, and what you’ve accomplished.  And I’m very glad I was assigned this.”

She tried not to look too stricken as she nodded.

—

If waiting for orders and milling around uselessly was the worst thing to happen, marching off to those orders had to be pretty close.  Such a huge body of individuals did not move quickly, and Lan Fan’s teeth gritted every single day with what little progress they made, the time lost when they had to break down and set their tents back up.  Even the little time they had for meals, mostly taken on their feet, sat poorly with her.  She knew, objectively, that they were driving an incredibly hard pace for an army, that they would reach their goal within a couple of weeks, if they were lucky, before the very worst of winter set in.  The chill had already increased as they went north.  Even she, inexperienced as she was in the ways of combat and leading armies, knew that Ling did not want to have to march his men (and one woman; not that he knew that) through snow.

Still, knowing how far she could have gotten on her own drove her mad _._

She and Ling didn’t have much time to talk while they marched, slow and monotonous as it was, but she did manage to secure limited access to their gunpowder stores with a promise that she could make them even better.

Thus, she passed the time and staved off her agonizing boredom by ensuring that their storage would keep the powder properly dry with the increased threat of wet weather.

Also, she passed it by making bombs.  By the time they halted within sight of the fortress, the sun sinking to their left, she had built up an impressive supply, and Ling came around to admire her work.

“I wasn’t expecting this many!  They’re so small, though.”

Lan Fan smirked faintly, putting the finishing touches on a last one.  “Yes, they are, but they’re much more powerful than you’d expect.  Another of those things that’s been passed down through my family.  You’ll see.”

Though he couldn’t kiss her cheek in public, he did reach out to squeeze her shoulder.  “I’m sure I will.”

With a sigh, she looked up from her completed handiwork, then over at their goal.  Though both parties were out of arrow range, she could still make out forms on the battlements, faced in their direction.

“And we’re to attack tomorrow, I suppose?” she murmured.

“That’s the plan, yes.  I’d like more information on the area, but we can’t approach to get any other intelligence, not with a group this size.  They picked a good spot to take: no cover, flat ground for miles.  They’d pick off any scouts we sent out in an instant.”

She nodded.  “So we’re at a disadvantage.  We don’t know their numbers, or their arms.”

“Not at all.”

“And it would take a miracle for us to handle this cautiously.”

Ling snorted at her words.  “If only, Liang Fan.  If only.”

—

That night, the moon worked to Lan Fan’s advantage.

Unlike the last evening in which she had put herself in an extremely precarious position, it was now no more than a sliver, providing the cover she needed to creep away from the camp.  While she would likely be invisible, or very near, to sentries or guards in her black clothing and mask—of black wrappings, not her traditional one; she wanted to blend in, not stand out as terrifying—her own night vision, honed over nearly two decades, made the lighting no more than a minor inconvenience.

Still, that didn’t stop her mind from cycling through everything that could go wrong: a sentry’s increased suspicions, a patrol, even a startled animal might give her away.

She was being an idiot.  But it wasn’t as if she didn’t have experience, and at this point, she might as well go all the way.

As she varied her path, doing her best to break up any straight lines, she caught no warning of anyone spotting her: a yell, an arrow whizzing through the air.  As she reached the walls of the stronghold, sinking into the shadows, she allowed herself a moment of relief.

Now came the tricky part.

Taking in a deep breath, still keeping herself quiet, she began to trace her fingers, the only uncovered part of her besides her eyes, over the wall.  Well-built enough, by Xingese standards, but it was that origin that played to her advantage.  She had been trained for this.

Digging her fingers into the cracks in the wall where they would fit, and wedging her small knives in where they wouldn’t in order to use them as foot- and handholds, she began to climb.

“ _There are too many of them!_ ”

She froze as she heard the rough voice, tinged with fear, above her, ducking her head and keeping as still as possible.  If they only glanced down, she might be safe, but if they made a habit of inspecting the outside of the walls, then she would have to move very quickly and kill an unknown number of people to avoid discovery.

She had picked up a passable amount of Xerxesian from Al (and Ed) during her months at the camp, and if she strained her knowledge enough, she could pick up on the gist of the conversation, at least.

“ _Be brave.  They may outnumber us, but our sacrifice for Father will not be in vain._ ”  Another voice, this one more confident.  She swallowed, _that_ catching her attention.  If their numbers were so low, then the Xingese army could attack with confidence, but if this were some kind of plan?

Her stay might need to be longer than she had initially thought.

“ _Is it true, what he says?  That he can bring us back from death?_ ”

She nearly fell off the side of the wall, jaw dropping.

“ _Yes.  I’ve seen it myself.  Have faith._ ”

The two voices faded off into the distance as the patrol continued its course.  Lan Fan had to force herself to break through the shock of what she had heard in order to keep climbing.

When she tumbled over the battlement, she quickly shrank into a corner to minimize the risk of being spotted.  But she could see no one within sight, the patrol fading into the distance on the top of the wall.  Peering over into the interior of the settlement, she could see the same disconcerting emptiness, the skeleton guard that wouldn’t defend the place, not once their army breached the walls.

Though, she noted, that would be a feat in itself, the way that the entrances were so thoroughly barricaded.  They did _not_ plan to give this place up easily.  They might even need to starve them out, which could take quite some time, if there were so few to need supplies for…

She needed to get to the bottom of this, and before morning.

She hadn’t the faintest idea where the Xingese military would have kept command rooms, but she had done passing guard for enough merchants that she had gained a sense for where men who liked to feel important tended to keep themselves within buildings, and she figured that the Xerxesians would have kept it similar when they repurposed it.  It couldn’t have taken her more than fifteen minutes to find it.

She creaked the door open slowly, glancing around.  No one appeared to be inside the candlelit room, so she slipped in, closing the door behind her as she began a quick look around.

The initial documents that she found only justified her lurking suspicions of mistrust: the stronghold barely had enough men to guard it, and supplies to last a very long time.  But they could never hold this place, not permanently, not with any sort of attack.

These men were here on a suicide mission.

She quickly began rummaging through the remaining papers, praying that her Xerxesian had gotten solid enough to recognize something of value.  She could come back with this information, but without any solid proof, or evidence of why this was the case, she would be laughed at.  Not by Ling, but he couldn’t just go about listening to her every word, not without looking weak.

A scroll, loosely rolled, caught her eye.

In truth, it was the seal that actually drew her attention: blood red, with a strange creature on it: a winged snake, it seemed, devouring its tail, the circle of its body surrounding a geometric pattern with six arranged triangles.  She reached out to pick up the scroll, unfurled it, and began to read.

The words gripped her heart and stomach, and with the awful, _awful_ feeling in her gut, she had to read—reread—read again, just to make sure her interpretation of the Xerxesian was correct.

So engrossed she was in double checking herself that she didn’t hear the footsteps coming up the hallway until they stopped right in front of the door.  With a small gasp, she set the scroll back in its place and, right as the doorknob turned, squeezed herself underneath one of the tables, praying that the flickering of the candlelight would conceal her dark form at a glance.

More footsteps sounded as, presumably, the commander of the Xerxesian base entered the room, followed by another set of feet after a few moments.

“ _The men are anxious.  They have spotted the smoke from the Xingese army._ ”

“ _Encourage them as you must.  This will be our last stand, but when we are resurrected, our rewards will be great._ ”

An affirmative from the second individual, and she heard footsteps heading back towards the door.  Were both of them leaving?  She couldn’t quite tell, not this time, not if they were walking together…

She held her breath as she strained her ears, listening, listening…

She was about to exhale with relief and creep out from underneath her desk when she heard a sigh—that wasn’t hers.

She froze again, exhaling _very_ quietly, and she heard clothing rustle, more footsteps as (again, presumably) the commander walked over to sit in his chair.

When she heard the scratching of a pen, the shift of him settling in, she closed her eyes in mental agony.

As she sat, settling in herself, she repeated the contents of the letter to herself, over and over, searing it into her memory.  The Xerxesian words as well: in the event that she was wrong, Ed could correct her and provide the proper translation.  Much as she usually hated being made the fool, in this case, she would be very happy to be wrong.

That is, if she ever got back to the Xingese camp alive.

She continued to wait, legs cramping, not daring to move lest she make a noise and give herself away.  She could probably kill him if it came to that, but that would make her presence known, and given what she had just learned, letting the Xerxesians know that they had been infiltrated could cause changing plans, alert them of their security breach, any number of unpleasant things.  It also meant that she couldn’t take the letter with her: if anyone were to discover it missing, they would know instantly what Lan Fan had done.

But neither could she just sit here and wait for the room’s occupant to leave.  She only had until daybreak, when Ling would lead their attack, and he needed to know…

A terrible, horrible, perfect idea occurred to her, and she clenched her fists in frustration with how much sense it made, how flawless it would be, if she could pull it off.  And she had everything she needed for it, too.  Still, it was risky, insane, and outright _stupid._

Just like everything else she had done since the conscription had been sent out.  And, to be fair, Xerxesians appeared very superstitious.

When her leg began to fall asleep, she made up her mind.

Reaching into a sleeve pocket, she pulled out a couple of small smoke bombs.  Once she had those in hand, she reached back to slip her mask, the real one, onto her face.  White with red and black markings around the eyes and mouth, along with one on the forehead, it had an ominous, almost terrifying look about it.

A deep breath, and she gently rolled the smoke bombs outwards.

She could hear the man’s chair clatter backwards as they hissed, the smoke beginning to fill the room.  The smoke covering her actions, she stealthily rolled to the middle of the rising smoke without drawing his attention.

Then, after settling herself into a crouch, she rose slowly, the smoke filling the room, pointing at the shocked man and letting out an ear piercing shriek.

“Trespassers!” she screamed in Xerxesian, arching her fingers in an approximation of claws.  “Interlopers!  You have walked upon the ground of the sacred dead, and we will devour your souls as you sleep!”

That finally broke the Xerxesian man out of his paralysis, and he let out a scream even more bloodcurdling than Lan Fan’s, scrambling for his weapon.

But the smoke had already filled the room completely, and working from sense and memory rather than sight, she slipped over to the door, opening it a crack, and squeezed through it before shutting it quietly.  Just in time, too, as the terrified screams of “Ghost!   _GHOST!_ ” from back inside the commander’s room now seemed to be lighting up some of the encampment, drawing soldiers from their posts to find out what the commotion was.

Good.  The fewer soldiers around, the easier it would be for her to escape.

She clambered onto the top of the building, dashing towards the edge—only to nearly run into another pair of sentries, who whirled at the sight of movement.

Without another thought, she snatched another of her smoke bombs, throwing it down, and let out another terrifying shriek, snarling and lunging at them.

Not only did they also scream in turn, but in their haste to run, they smacked into each other instead, losing their balance and falling to the ground with yells.  More to spread the tale of the haunting, then.

Retracing her steps in her head, she ran towards the wall, keeping as quiet as she could.  From a roof, she hauled herself back up towards the battlements, but another patrol blocked the way, its members looking terrified at the shouting.

That, combined with her soreness from waiting in the command office and lack of desire to continue hanging, waiting for an opening and begging to become an easy target for an arrow, left her with no patience.  Pulling herself up, she snatched the torch from its stand, rolling forward, and screaming as she launched herself through the crenel and towards them.

The sight of her mask, the fire, her arms waving—

They turned tail and ran.

The adrenaline pumping through her left her cackling madly (but softly) as she ran towards the place where she had made her initial ascent.  From behind her, cries of “Where is it!”, “I see it!  Over here!”, and “There’s another one over there!” rang out in the darkness of the night.

She slid over the outer battlement, scrambling down the wall and retrieving her knives as she passed them, finally landing in a crouch, hands steadying her and keeping her upright as her heart pounded through her ears.

Working quickly, she shoved her mask back into her hood and drew the hood forward again, dashing back in the direction of the Xingese camp.

Lucky, she thought wildly, that her wraps covered her face, because as she bolted from the Xerxesian stronghold, she grinned like mad, her teeth bared so wide that any sentry would have seen their white gleam.

—

“ _What is the meaning of this!_ ”

Of all the people Lan Fan hadn’t wanted to run into as she made her way back through the camp, Au Chu easily made the top of her list.

“Um,” was all she managed to say, heart still racing, eyes wide, brain still not properly there _._  Belatedly, she realized that she still had on her black mask, and she yanked it down to avoid being stabbed as a spy.

“What are you doing?” he snarled, pointing a quivering finger in Lan Fan’s direction.  “Sneaking out to spy?  To give the enemy information on our position?  Traitor!”

“No!” Lan Fan yelped, lifting her hands, eyes wide.  “I was—I was just—”

“Oh, that’s enough, you idiot.”

Lan Fan froze, eyes wide, as Ling staggered out of his tent, hair down, eyes squinted with sleep.  “Shut up and stop accusing trusted soldiers of treachery, or I’ll have you tied to the back of a horse and make you jog along behind us for a week.”

Au Chu gasped with outrage as Lan Fan relaxed.   _Ling_ would believe her.

The commotion had woken up several others, however, and torches began to flare up as a small crowd gathered.

“Then what was he doing!” Au Chu snapped, straightening his shoulders and trying to regain his dignity.

“I was scouting!” she snapped right back.  “We didn’t have enough intelligence on the enemy’s forces, so I went to—”

“Liar!  Our sentries would have alerted us if someone had come into camp!”

She stared at him, mouth hanging open slightly.  Did he really think that she couldn’t get past _sentries?_

“Liang Fan was working under my orders, Au,” Ling replied coolly, and Lan Fan’s eyes widened at the lie.  Au glanced between the two of them suspiciously, and she tried to pretend that she had expected Ling to say just that.

“Then what,” Au began, voice dripping condescension, “information have you brought us?”

Lan Fan glanced up at Ling, pleading in her eyes, then around at the rest of them, heart beating wildly.

“We have to turn around.”

Shocked silence greeted her declaration.

“Absolutely not!”  Au’s words set off declarations of agreement; though few people at the camp truly liked him, no one would dream of turning their backs to the enemy.

“Liang Fan,” Ling said sharply.  “Explain.”

She nodded, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath.

“The stronghold is undermanned.  It has barely a skeleton guard—”

“So that will make it easier to take!”

“Let him _finish_ , Au,” Ling snarled, “or I will have you removed _._ ”

“Thank you, Highness,” she murmured with another nod.

“While I was there, I found correspondence from… this Xerxesian, Father.  This outpost was merely to draw our attention from the real force, which is positioning itself to close in behind our main forces.  The men here have barricaded themselves in, with supplies to last them quite some time.  They know they will die eventually, but not before they keep us occupied long enough for that Xerxesian force to catch our army.  It will be a slaughter _._ ”

“You’re sure,” Ling said, voice low and urgent.  She nodded without hesitation.

“Mostly, from what I’ve picked up in Xerxesian—”  She spotted Ed in the crowd, watching her.  “I memorized the entire letter, just to be sure, if you want to make sure.”

Ling waved, and someone rushed forward to give the two a pen.  “Go ahead,” Ed said, voice tense, though he tried to smile at her.  She appreciated the gesture.

She sagged slightly, closed her eyes, and recited it from memory.  She didn’t get the pronunciation perfect, but Ed scribbled quickly, then pulled back, glancing it over.

He finally broke the silence.

“He’s right,” he said quietly.  “The larger army, it’s up further north, and they’ve set up a base.”  He jerked his head up, eyes gleaming as he stared at Ling.  “Father is there.”

Au scoffed, still giving Lan Fan a nasty look.  “And how do we know he’s being truthful?  He could have just _claimed_ to have come back with this information; no one saw him coming or going!”

She could hear the murmurs around her, the whispers of agreement, and her heart sank.  She looked over at Ling, trying to convey the pleading in her eyes.  He had to believe her, or all of them—and their country—were finished.

Ling watched her, expression utterly inscrutable.  Right when she couldn’t bear it any longer, he spoke.

“Pack up, and send out the orders.  We start marching north.”


	9. Chapter 9

[ ](http://nimohtar.tumblr.com/post/149333173498/artwork-for-the-wonderful-story-adversitys)

_Art by[Nimohtar](http://nimohtar.tumblr.com/)_

  


* * *

  


“You’ve been looking at me like you’ve been wanting to say something for days.”

Lan Fan jumped at the words, then glanced back up at Ling guiltily.

“There it is again!”

“Maybe I just don’t like the snow,” she muttered, giving the slushy mess, trampled under hundreds of pairs of feet, a kick.

Ling simply sighed, watching her with fond disapproval.  “Talk to me, Liang Fan.”

She looked away.  Hearing him say that name, the name of a man who he trusted, who Lan Fan wasn’t, who didn’t _exist,_ drove a poisoned knife further into her chest every time.

But right now, they had more pressing matters.

“Not here,” she murmured, glancing around at the people surrounding her, and with a nod, he began to draw his horse back.  She slowed as well, doing her best to look innocent until they fell to the rear.

“All right.  I’m listening.”

Giving a look around her to make sure that no one else was, Lan Fan arranged her thoughts, then began.

“While I was in the Xerxesian outpost, I overheard some talk.”  Hearing the words made her realize how stupid she would sound, repeating idle gossip between soldiers, but she forged on.  “Talk of this Father.  How he… he had the ability to bring the dead back, to live again.  How he had powers from some god.”

Ling inhaled beside her, and she glanced over, watching his face.  She caught the barest flicker of quiet worry, but only because she knew it so well, and he smoothed his expression over immediately.

“What I am about to tell you, you cannot repeat.”

Throat constricting, she nodded.  Ling couldn’t be about to tell her that it was _true_ , could he?

“I’ve heard stories like that as well, from Al and Ed.  That the reason he was able to raise such a huge army is because he has a horde of zealots who have seen him bring others back from the dead.  So they don’t fear battle.”

She felt like an idiot asking the next question, but Father _had_ taken Xerxes in a very swift, decisive fashion.

“Can he?”

Ling turned to watch her for a moment.  She spent an instant terrified that he was going to say yes.

“No,” he finally sighed, shaking his head.  “That isn’t possible, or so I’ve been told.”

“By the princes?”

Ling nodded.  “Xerxes… it has developed something called alchemy.  Are you familiar with it?”

Lan Fan thought back to tales of the great desert people, rumors of the ability to touch something and transform it into whatever they wanted.  “Children’s stories.  Magic.”

“Oh, certainly not.  Alchemy is very much real, but it’s a science, not magic.  Ed and Al have told me some.  Just a little, though I’ve heard Mustang has picked up on what little they’ve taught him.  They normally guard it as jealously as their automail, but…”  He shrugged.  “The principle of the science is based on transmuting one thing to another, yes, but they must have similar base materials.  And you certainly can’t bring someone back to life again.”

“You’re sure?”

“Ed and Al are, and though they didn’t tell me much about how they knew, from the expressions on their faces, I have to believe them.”

She relaxed a bit, sagging slightly.

“What they have told me, however,” he continued, lowering his voice, “is that alchemy’s foundation is based on equivalent exchange.  To gain something, you must lose something else, whatever it was you transmuted from.”  He paused, and Lan Fan’s heart sank.  “Tthe frightening thing about him isn’t that he can bring people back, but that he ignores this law in his alchemy.”

“Then how do you—!”  At Ling’s sharp look, she lowered her voice to a whisper.  “Then how do you know it’s alchemy after all?  They say it’s miracles—!”

“It’s not.”  Ling sighed, lifting a gloved hand to rub at his cheek, and Lan Fan noticed that they had grown red from the cold.  “I don’t know what it is, exactly.  Ed and Al won’t share that part.  But it allows Father to bypass that equivalent exchange.   _That_ is what makes him dangerous.”

Lan Fan took a moment to stare out at an angle, taking in the sight of the white expanse of snow before them, the distance they still needed to march.

“You—we don’t know what we’re going to find there, do we?”

Ling looked down at her, a tired expression on his face, then back down at his reins.  “No.  I don’t.”

—

The tall, ominous form of a wood and stone tower rose before their army, dark against the pale gray sky of dawn.

“Tell you one thing,” Ed muttered, glaring up at it, wrapped in what looked like a dozen cloaks.  “You’re at an advantage, because every fucking Xerxesian in there has probably frozen to death.”

“Fighting will keep you warm,” Lan Fan murmured back, trying not to snort in amusement.  Her time around the princes—or, well, one in particular—now meant that her Xerxesian profanity was now even more fluent than her Xingese.  She stared up as well.  She had never seen anything so _big._  “It seems to be working for your friends to the south.”  Though reports from the main forces led by Mustang and other Xingese generals had become sparse since Ling’s frantic courier had delivered a dire warning to make their attack, the most recent news had been good, even if the fighting was far from over.

That left Ling’s group to confront Father’s forces.  They would be getting no help from the south, or even the backup forces, not until that fighting was won.

“Yeah, ‘cause it’s warmer down there.”

“Marginally.”

“Your winter sucks.  I want a refund.”

Lan Fan snorted softly, then turned to Ling, who was also watching the tower.

“Alchemy?” she asked softly, and Ed nodded.

“Only way to build something so big so quickly.  Probably isn’t the steadiest, but they’ve seen us coming, without any doubt.  No surprise attacks here.”

Ling nodded, then glanced over towards Lan Fan, smiling wryly.  “Or covert reconnaissance.”

Lan Fan took it in, the high walls, the soldiers milling so closely together that they looked like ants.  “Definitely not.”

Ling turned his horse away, then, trotting it in a half-circle so he could see them all.  “Ready?”

At their nods, he headed back up to the front of the group of men, put his fingers in his mouth, and let out a shrill whistle.

The assembly instantly silenced.

“Positions!” he cried out, bellowing over the crowd.

The entire mass of men near-instantly became ranks, lines of organization, with a few angles and exceptions as sorted out by Ling as “strategically significant.”  Lan Fan, for all that she had become a close friend of the prince of Xing, knew very well that she was to fall into the role of a common foot soldier the moment battle started.

“Weapons!”

She drew her sword and waited for the call to charge.

From the beginning, the battle took on a life of its own.

Arrows released on both sides, some finding their targets, many more not.  It was only a cursory exchange, anyway; not too important.  No, that part was coming next.

The center mass of soldiers surged up to the front, just as planned, and she tightened the grip on her sword—

They rushed apart, just as planned, her included.  As they leaped out of the way, the giant tree trunk, hacked down over the past two days, surged forward as well, a battering ram between them.

_Wham!_

More arrows rained down on them, but Ling had made sure that his men were well protected.  She ducked her head, and one glanced off of her armored helmet.

_Wham!_

Ling’s approximation of the structural integrity of the gates held true.  She could hear the creaking as the men drew back again, keeping up the steady pace of slamming.  One fell, an arrow through the gap in his neck, but another dove forward to take his place.  She had no concept of time, of how long they had been swinging, of how many strokes.

_Wham—crack!_

The gates opened, and out spilled a horde of frenzied humanity, the likes of which Lan Fan had never seen in her life.

Ling’s lessons took over at the rush of screaming men: she swung, covered herself and the people next to her, her blade slicing through a thigh muscle, through a shoulder gap, lopping off a head.  She blocked, swiping away swings, dodging thrusts, ducking slices.

She had never come close to drowning, but she thought that it might be a similar experience to this.

The roar of soldiers, Xingese, Xerxesian, and Amestrian, settled over her like the crashing of a wave, and her mind processed it—then tucked it away.

She had a _mission_ , and it was to be the best soldier she could be.  This was what she had been training for.  This was everything her family needed from her.  This was her chance.

A fresh wave of Xerxesians rushed forward, cutting a swathe down the Xingese forces.  Blood spilled everywhere, limbs, bodies, screams—

The sight, the sound, yanked Lan Fan out of the odd trance into which the fight had drawn her.

They were outnumbered, and badly.  Good soldiers they might be, but their numbers could never hold against this raging mass of furious humanity.  The other Xerxesian force, the one their main group was engaging right at this moment—it had to be a decoy.  As she turned, fending off another attack, she realized the truth of it.

They had stumbled into the viper’s nest.

Spitting curses in Xingese and Xerxesian, she wrenched herself through the crowd, cutting down foe where she could.  She was _not_ going to die like this, squished like some bug, bled out on a battlefield!

She spotted the back line of the Xingese defense, their supply wagons behind it.   _Perfect._  With a final groan, she wrenched free—

And stumbled right into the path of a set of hooves, attached to familiar black legs.  Snapping her head up, she met Ling’s eyes.  His horrified, startled, betrayed eyes.

Looking for deserters.

“Liang Fan…?”

She couldn’t hear the words, but she could see them mouthed, could almost imagine that he had said her true name, rather than the one of his nonexistent friend.  And she knew she couldn’t reply, couldn’t defend herself, not be heard, not in time.

“ _Please_ ,” she mouthed, gasping, putting every bit of pleading into her expression that she could.

She saw him waver, for just a moment, and swore that their entire friendship flickered across his face: talks of their families and homes, of dreams and aspirations and ambitions, of kisses—

Steel settled in his eyes, and he nodded, whirling his horse and sending it galloping back to the front lines, screaming a war cry.

Lan Fan whirled herself, path clear, yanking off the more cumbersome bits of armor to drop them in the snow, and ran.

—

Diving back into the fray after escaping it was one of the more unpleasant experiences of her life.

 _When did I get this wry?_ she wondered forlornly to herself (likely a defense mechanism, to distract her from having to dodge and dive and avoid being trampled), but then a series of images flashed before her face—Ling, Roy, Jean, Ed, _Al_ —and she shoved that question away.

The Xingese forces had, at least, pushed the Xerxesians back into their fortress.  Lan Fan squeezed through the largest gaps, elbowing when she had to, stabbing when that didn’t work, and after killing several enemy soldiers and bloodying the noses of two of their own, she staggered through the gates and rolled into enemy territory.

This, of course, made her a prime enemy _target._

She yelped and leaped out of the way as three arrows zipped towards her, then quivered in the ground on which she had just been standing.  Letting out a huff that might have been amusement, exhilaration, or sheer panic, she yanked her mask down onto her face, completing the ensemble, and ran.

The outfit did the job, sending terrified men scattering when speed, steel, and stealth didn’t—interestingly enough, stealth was still quite possible after exposure during a battle. Most soldiers seemed to have killing the enemy on their minds and missed the finer details.  She lost count of how many corners she hid behind, how many men failed to spot her in the shadow of a barrel, as she made her way towards the watchtower.

She had to work fast, she knew, or someone would finally decide to stick a knife in her back.  Once she entered the watchtower, she reverted back to her usual habits of remaining unnoticed.  No need to cause herself any more trouble while she made a few detours.

Regular guard seemed to have been forgotten, so she got a good sense of the place: a circle, the outer rooms for storage and habitation.  The center… well, she had only spotted one entrance, a large set of ornate double doors, barred well.  If Father weren’t in there, she’d strip naked for the Xingese army.  The doors contrasted too dramatically with the roughly hewn nature of the rest of the structure, splinters still in the wood—and it was mostly wood, she realized from the inside.

As she explored, it hit her exactly _how_ huge this watchtower was.  Something this large, built so quickly, couldn’t be structurally sound.

When she reached the area where she had come in, marking a full circle, she had fully formed her plan.  All she needed to do now was find Ling, get him to pull back, and—

The Xingese army took that moment to burst into the watchtower.

She bit back a hiss of frustration behind her mask.  She had underestimated their forces as much as the Xerxesians had.  Who would have expected that she would find herself wishing that their forces were slightly less skilled, Ling slightly less competent of a commander?  Only for a short time, of course, but why did they have to succeed _now?_

Ed, automail arm now with a blade attached, led the charge, and he cut down Xerxesians left and right.  Clearing a swathe, he reached the door.

“I’m coming for you, motherfucker!” he screamed with the feral shrieking of a Xerxesian demon, and with a clap of his hands, blue crackles of lightning sprung from them.  When he pressed those hands to the door, the lightning forked through the entire room, splitting the doors down the middle.

Lan Fan’s mouth dropped open in awe.

The awe then quickly turned to horror as fresh Xerxesian forces, hundreds of them, spilled out into the bloodbath.

“ _Dammit!_ ”

She took off, making for the outer rooms once again.  Two Xerxesians rushed at her, but she quickly dispatched them with thrown knife blades.  She’d have to delay even longer now, give them time to get out!

Cutting her way through more soldiers, she made her way back around, laying her trap.  But she needed to hurry, now, before she caught her own people in it as well.

She reached the splintered remains of the large door after coming full circle, the fighting still thick, but she ran for a wall, propelled up it by her momentum, launched herself up onto the shoulders of a hapless soldier, then vaulted over the mess.  It took a couple of footsteps landing on a couple of heads to hop inside, but she made it.

There, she got her first look at Father.

Seeing him so close to Ed threw her: the uncanny similarities of their faces leaving her wondering, despite Father’s obvious ten or so years on Ed.  With his gold hair tied into a high tail and sharp, proud features, he resembled the older Xerxesian prince even more than the older brother resembled the younger.  The only immediate difference she could spot was that while Ed had golden bangs framing his face, Father had pulled all of his hair back, leaving a cold severity to his demeanor while Ed glowed hot fury.

A fury that turned to screaming pain as Father disrupted the ground below Ed, throwing him to the ground.

Father lifted a blade, going in for the kill—

And a familiar Dao sword parried it away.

With a snarl, Ling thrust himself between Father and Ed, pushing him back.  He had lost his helmet in the fighting, or removed it for better visibility.  Regardless, Lan Fan needed to get to him, and quickly.

An arrow whizzing by sent her head jerking upwards.  The Xerxesian archers had camped out on an upper catwalk, and as she watched, two more took aim at the Xingese forces.

She threw herself in the direction of a wall and clambered up.  More arrows thudded in the wood next to her, but she shifted her path enough that it—

She hissed as one grazed her left arm, pinning her sleeve to the wall.  She wrenched it free, tearing both cloth and flesh—so a bit more than a graze, then—ignoring the blood streaming down her bicep and smearing the wall.

When she reached the catwalk, she hauled herself up parallel to the ground, sweeping her legs up to knock the nearest archer to the ground.  She didn’t look down after him, but a thud told her all she needed to know about his low odds of survival.

She rolled, avoiding more arrows, and clotheslined another archer when she stood.  This put her right above Ling’s battle with Father, the two locking swords, then leaping away, Ling dodging the earth when it rumbled and moved.  Right before her eyes, Father’s sword shifted, becoming an axe, catching Ling’s sword in it.  Without another movement, as they struggled together, the blade on Father’s axe shifted again, still holding Ling in place as a corner elongated and headed straight for his neck.

Lan Fan’s eyes widened, and she dropped.

Ling at least broke her fall, and she controlled her landing enough not to break him, either.  The elongated blade swished above her, nicking her hair, sending the strands falling down around her face as the tie on her bun snapped.

“Liang Fan—!”

She barely processed the shocked look on Ling’s face as she rammed her elbow, one of the few remaining armored parts of her body, behind her.  It hit something soft, and she heard retching.

“Retreat!” she yelled at him, deflecting another sword aimed at the two of them.

Ling’s jaw dropped.  “ _What?_  No—!”

“Now, Ling!”  She rolled to the side, yanking Ling with her, and Father’s axe buried itself into the ground where they had just been laying.  With a growl, she yanked him up.  “Go!”  He opened his mouth to argue, but she ignored it, turning to parry away Father’s next strike.  “Trust me!” she cried.

When she next risked a glance over in Ling’s direction, his shock had shifted to determination.  With a nod, he turned away.

“Retreat!” he bellowed above the crowd.  “Xing!  Back outside!”

Father snarled and made to follow, but Lan Fan drew her hand back and punched him in the temple with her armored gauntlet.  He whirled, and she jumped back, but the blade followed—

It sliced diagonally down her chest and stomach, parting her clothes to meet flesh.

Oddly enough, with so much adrenaline rushing through her body, she felt no pain.  He had missed her breasts, the only thing that mattered, leaving the sarashi concealing them untouched.

“To me!” Father cried, and there _had_ to be something alchemical that amplified his voice: it echoed through the entire tower—the entire stronghold _._  More Xerxesian soldiers poured in as the Xingese tried to escape, but instead of holding up to fight, they chose to swarm to their leader.

_Good._

She leaped away from another swing, risking a glance towards the door.  She had his attention now, which she wanted, and if the army could get out in time—

The first explosion rang out only moments after they had cleared the door.

Two more followed in quick succession, set off by the force of the first.  She saw heads—all Xerxesian, thank goodness—turn to gape at the direction from which the noise had come, and her heart leaped with relief as a mass of stones and wood tumbled to the ground, collapsing the doorway.  As nearly everyone paused to gape at the mass now trapping them inside, three more groups of explosions all sounded, clustered like the first, and Father whirled on her.

“You!” he snarled.

She allowed herself a brief moment of triumph, taking in the fury on his face and laughing in his face before turning and dashing away.

She dodged a spike of earth that jutted up, flipping back to the wall as yet another explosion sounded.  She had timed her bombs well, and by setting groups together to multiply their strength, she ensured that yet another support in the massive building’s foundation had just blown to smithereens.

Father should have known that a shoddily-built enormous construct would be a terrible idea.

As she hauled herself back up onto the catwalk, the building shook.  When she headed for a window, the first dust began to fall.  When she _reached_ the window and realized that jumping would more likely break both legs than not, the stones started tumbling down.

“ _No—!_ ”

When she glanced back at Father’s cry, the last she saw of him was his form being swallowed by a mass of falling wreckage, which buried his screaming soldiers as well.  With an air of finality, a massive chunk of wall slammed down on top of it all.

The image sparked another in her mind’s eye.  An idea.

Turning back to her plight, she lifted a hand to shield herself from the worst of the debris as she squinted upwards—

There!

She scooted slightly to the side as another huge chunk of wall tumbled down, tensing her legs, readying herself—

It hurtled past her, and she leaped.

Landing on a falling rock was one of the more impressive feats of her life, but definitely not the steadiest.  She clung to it only long enough to catch what little balance she could, then used it as a platform from which to launch herself over to one of the roofs of the outer buildings.

Scrambling across them, leaping from one to another, she finally reached the wall.  Practically catapulting herself on top of it, she dodged startled soldiers and grabbed the outer battlement, shoving herself up and over.  This wall at least had arrow slits she could cling to, though since they weren’t big enough for her feet, her injured arm soon began to ache from the strain.

Then the wall shook, and her fingers slipped, sending her hurtling to the ground—

—Which was barely her own height’s distance below her.  Slightly winded but uninjured from the fall, she pushed herself up, turning to sprint away from the stronghold, towards the Xingese forces already some distance away.

Risking a glance behind her, she was treated to a front row view of the collapsing watchtower crumbling like a castle of sand, sending out shrapnel of stones and wood and other debris, taking the buildings and walls and plenty of fleeing Xerxesians with it.

The cloud of dust, of course, didn’t stop at the walls, rushing outwards.

She gasped, turned back, and ran faster.

An arrow zipped past her again—from the Xingese forces?!  She reached up to shove her mask back, lifting her arms.  “Don’t shoot!”

She caught sight of a familiar figure on a horse rushing over to an archer and bowling him down, sending him toppling facefirst into the snow.

Lan Fan had never been out of shape in her life, so the burning in her lungs confused her.  Yes, she had run around quite a bit today, but it shouldn’t be so…

“ _Liang Fan!_ ”

She had never heard Ling scream like that, and she wasn’t certain she ever wanted to again.

Glancing behind her, she could still see the dust spreading outwards, but the speed of it had slowed, and so did she.

Ling dismounted and ran out to meet her, herding her towards the group of exhausted and bloody Xingese soldiers.

Every one of them staring at her in awe.

She swallowed, beginning to feel dizzy at the attention.  “Give chase?” she asked faintly, turning to glance at the fleeing Xerxesian soldiers.  Though a handful had survived, they were scattering now, their leader dead.

“No need,” he breathed, pointing in the direction from which they had marched.

She could have cried at the sight of their main force, Xingese and Amestrian and Xerxesian alike, as well as a separate group marching in from a slightly different angle.  She could barely make out the Xerxesian banner in the distance.  She heard a cry from the direction of the fresh troops, and they charged, pursuing the rest of the enemy.

“Oh,” she said faintly, turning back, still panting hard.  It was harder to breathe for some reason, and she was still dizzy, even though the worst was over…

Ling lunged forward, throwing his arms around her and holding her tightly.  “You stupid, _stupid_ man!” he hissed, only loud enough for her to hear.  “You could have been killed--!”

“But I wasn’t?” she said hopefully, slurring a little.  Her voice sounded high to her ears… wasn’t she supposed to do something with it…?

“No,” he breathed, then turned to face the army.  “And you saved my life!” he declared, much louder.  She expected glares of envy, but every single face instead showed nothing but respect, admiration, and awe.

“Liang Fan.”  He turned to face her.  “You stupid—brilliant _—crazy_ genius!” he laughed, hugging her again.  She staggered and yelped, clinging to him, then gasped as a flicker of pain throbbed against her stomach, then began _screaming._

Ling pulled back slightly, a confused expression in his eyes.  He was so close, his face, and she wondered if he was about to kiss her, in front of everyone.  She would like that, she thought, but she would also like it if the ground would stop spinning…

“Liang Fan?” he asked, and she wanted to tell him to hold her tightly again.  “What’s the…”

He glanced down, eyes widening, and she followed the look.  Though her black clothing had concealed it, her blood had stained the entire front of his yellow shirt a dark red.  She glanced over to his arm to see that it had drenched his sleeve as well.

Oh, bother, she thought distantly, sagging a bit, barely noticing that he held her up.  “I’m getting very tired of being blamed for staining things,” she slurred—or tried to; it sounded mostly like gibberish to her ears.  “I would very much like to lie down now.”

Ling knelt, laying her horizontally, and she lifted her hand to take his sleeve, smiling faintly.  Why did he look so frightened?  They had won.

“It will be all right,” Ling murmured, stroking her forehead.  “Just hold on.  It will be fine.”

Something, there was _something_ she needed to tell him, or something she needed to remember… but if it wasn’t coming to her now, it couldn’t be that important, could it?

The last thing she saw before her vision went dark was Ling’s frightened face.  She wanted to tell him not to worry, that she’d been through worse—a lie that wouldn’t hurt anyone—but before her mouth could form the words, everything slipped away.


	10. Chapter 10

Lan Fan woke to throbbing pain and difficulty breathing.

She noticed the chill second, and shivered slightly, burrowing further into her blankets.  No sweating, she thought distantly, so probably no fever…

A sigh escaped her lips, eyes still closed, and she lifted her right arm to touch her left.  Bandages.  Good.  Well, mostly: she winced as the brush of her fingers set off fresh waves of pain.  With a groan, she dropped her hand back down to her side.  Lan Fan barely registered the bandages around her middle, so used to wearing them…

The tent flap sounded as it lifted, and she forced her eyes open with a soft groan.

_Ling._

His name, his face, were the only thing she could focus on, and they brought a smile to her lips as she pushed herself up—

The blanket fell from around her shoulders, and his unreadable expression shifted to one of—shock.  Disbelief.   _Betrayal._

Too late, her head finally cleared enough to process the danger—the reality—of her situation, of what the fresh bandages around her stomach must mean.  She gasped, reaching down to snatch the blanket back up, covering her bandaged chest.

“It’s true,” Ling said, voice tight.  “What the doctor said.”

She cringed and looked away.  “I—”

“You lied to me!” he burst out, and she flinched backwards.  “All this time, deceiving the army.  Your comrades.  Your country,” he snarled, and his cold expression left her mouth dry.  “ _Me._  I _trusted_ you!”

For just a moment she saw the impassive mask flicker, the coldness of a future ruler drop, and behind it—

Anguish.  Confusion.  Sorrow.

“I know.”  She shifted, still covering herself as she sat up, kneeling in front of him.  “Please, I didn’t want—”

The tent flap yanked away again, and someone else burst through.

_Au Chu._

“Look at this _disgrace_ ,” he spat, whirling on Ling.  “Did you know?  Your little favorite?  Take her along to have your fun?  To make a _mockery_ of the sacred Imperial Army?  To—”

“No!” Lan Fan cried, blood running cold.  She had always known what her punishment would be, if she were exposed, but to think that Ling might suffer for it as well…!  “He had nothing to do with—!”

Au strode forward, lunging in and grabbing her hair, lifting her and dragging her towards the tent’s entrance.  She shrieked as her scalp nearly tore free of her head, clutching the blanket tighter around herself in an attempt to preserve whatever shred of dignity she might have left.  It pulled on her wounds, as well, but nothing compared to the agony in her chest.

The two of them jerked to a halt, Lan Fan gasping, squinting up at Ling’s stern face through the haze of pain.

“I will deal with this _quietly_ ,” he hissed.

Au scoffed.  “Interfere, and I will be _forced_ to believe that you were complicit in this scheme, and make your actions known to the Emperor.”

She could see Ling’s eyes widen at that, and yet another knife pierced her chest.  She couldn’t do this to him, too, force him to sacrifice everything he had worked for.  If he even would.  If she were being brutally honest—and she didn’t have much room for deception anymore—she didn’t know what he would do when forced to make that choice.

She hoped he could see the pleading in her eyes, on her face, the way that she shook her head as much as she could despite the pain.

Au reached out to grab Ling’s wrist, shoving it out of the way, and threw her out of the front of the tent.

With one hand holding the blanket around her, she couldn’t properly break her fall, so she landed with a gasp on her knees, arm, and face.  The cold of the snow shocked through her, leaving her gasping; the white of it, lit by the full moon, addled her senses as well.

“Treachery!” Au cried, striding out to lift her by her hair again as she tried to scramble away.  “Lying!  Deceit!  But what more would you expect,” he spat, grabbing the blanket and yanking it away, revealing the curve of her breasts, covered by the bandages, “from a _woman!_ ”

She could hear the shocked murmur rumble through the assembled forces as he dropped her into the snow again.  When she lifted her head, she saw them glancing amongst each other, shock on their faces.  With a jolt of mortification, her eyes met Ed’s horrified expression.

She looked away.  The crunching of boots in the snow behind her drew her attention enough to turn her head.

Ling towered above her, face expressionless.

“Explain.”

She lowered her eyes, not wanting to see his face that way, not after the way she knew it animated when he heard something that excited him, softened sometimes when he looked at her.

“My name is “Lan Fan.”  She raised her voice; if she was to die, she didn’t want it to be namelessly.  “Our family had no fit men to serve, so I did instead.”

“What,” Au sneered,  “on a lark?   Some sort of joke, to diminish the risks these brave men take every—”

Ling lifted his arm, cutting Au off with the small movement and a very, very terrifying presence.

She took a deep breath.  “I made the choice to save my grandfather.”  She met Ling’s eyes.  “Everything else I’ve told you is true,” she finished quietly.

Ling let out a bark of humorless laughter at that and turned away.

“Ling, please—!”

Shocked murmurs rippled through the assembled crowd, and Ling’s cold expression turned absolutely frosty.

“You will not address me with such informality again,” he snapped, every syllable enunciated.

She hunched her shoulders as if he had slapped her.

Au Chu stormed over to snatch Lan Fan’s sword from where it lay on top of her rolled belongings, then back to Ling, thrusting it into his hands.

“Hold the fuck up!”

Lan Fan jerked her head up, eyes widening as she caught sight of an expression absolutely dark with fury, striding forward from the crowd.

“You’d better not fucking kill her—”

Au Chu stepped between Edris and Lan Fan, lifting his chin and glaring down at the prince.  “This is a matter for _Xingese_ law to enforce.  You have no right to interfere.”

“Bull fucking shit—”

When Jean stepped forward as well, Au straightened up even more.  “If you would like to spit in the face of the Xingese imperial family, by all means.  But if you wish to maintain your alliance with us when you and your people are completely at your _mercy_ ,” he spat, “you will stay back.”

Lan Fan could see Ed go white with fury, and she lifted her head.

“Stop!” she croaked, raising her voice as much as she could.  She couldn’t have anyone in trouble because of her stupid mistake.  “I knew the consequences when I did this.  Stand back.”

The two of them froze, eyes wide, and then the _shhhing_ of a sword being drawn from its sheath rang out behind her.

More steps crunched in the snow as Ling walked around in front of her, bare sword in hand.  She couldn’t look at his face, only saw the blade.  Before she closed her eyes and lowered her head, she caught sight of Ed, still trying to struggle forward, and Jean holding him back.

Good.

Hunching her shoulders, head bowed, fists clenched, she waited for the strike.

She should have known it would come to this.  She had thought she had come so far, tried so hard to overcome the stain of dishonor of her family, done so much—

And yet here she was, just like her father, kneeling and bracing herself for the same punishment as him.

A heartbeat.  Then another.  She cracked her eyes open, and she could still see Ling’s boots in front of her, the way her breath fogged the frozen air in tiny, quick clouds.

The sword dropped to the snow in front of her face, naked blade gleaming in the moonlight.

With a gasp, she yanked her head upwards, too stunned to think that she might not like what she saw.  Ling’s face, impassive as it had been for most of the time since her discovery, stared down at her.

“You saved my life,” he said flatly.  “And here is yours.  I owe you nothing more.”

Face still blank, he turned to the army.  “We need to catch up with the main force.  We move out immediately.”

Au Chu sputtered, stepping forward.  “You can’t defy—!”

Too quickly for Lan Fan’s frozen mind to detect, Ling drew his own sword, and in a flash of metal, the pointed tip was resting a hair’s breadth from Au’s throat.

“I have given my orders,” he said, voice level and chilly.  “You will obey.”

She risked a glance to her side, at Ed and Jean, Ed still struggling halfheartedly against Jean’s hold.  Ling turned to him, fixing Ed with the same stare he had given Au.  Ed glared back for quite some time, but right as the tension nearly tipped over into unbearable, Jean’s final tug on his arm turned him away as they reluctantly started to follow the rest of the group.

Lan Fan closed her eyes, exhaling, shaking with what she finally realized was relief.

—

She didn’t dare move while the army began its journey; someone might have decided to take justice and honor into their own hands, and selfish as it might be, now that she had been granted a second chance at life, she didn’t want to squander it.

Neither, however, did she want to watch the soldiers walk away, leaving her behind, knowing what they must think of her, knowing what she had done.

She wondered idly if her stay of execution would do her any good; she hadn’t turned to look and see if they had left her belongings.  She might simply freeze to death.

The sound of the army finally began to grow quieter with distance, and she allowed to relax, just a tiny bit—

Until the sound of hoofbeats jolted her out of her near trance.

She gasped, eyes wide, not daring to breathe—

“Hey,” came a gentle voice, slightly familiar, with a heavy Amestrian accent.  “You all right?”

Lan Fan lifted her head, and her gaze met the blue, blue eyes of Jean Havoc.

“I…” she croaked faintly, wondering if she had committed some Amestrian taboo so great that he would slay her on the spot, even risking the wrath of Xing to do so, before she recalled that he had come to her defense.

“C’mere,” he murmured, kneeling to gently take her arms, then lifting her, wrapping the blanket back around her.  “You’ll freeze to death like this.”

She nodded mutely, allowing herself to be helped up.  When he tried to lead her over to where her pack remained, however, she tugged free.  She needed to do this herself.

Shivering fingers pulled out a spare set of clothes, one not covered with her own blood, and pulled them on.  Though the residual cold had set into her bones, freezing to death was now no longer an immediate danger.

“What are you doing here?” she whispered, turning to see that he had faced away while she had dressed.  She couldn’t suppress a quiet sense of gratitude for the dignity he had allowed her.

“I couldn’t leave you stranded,” he replied, just as quietly, and he stepped over, keeping his motions slow and cautious as he pressed a bag, still warm and smelling of food, into her hands.  “It should get you home.  This way you won’t die before you get there.”

She ducked her head, swallowing around the lump in her throat, trying to force away the tears that threatened.  “I should.  For what I’ve done.”

“No!”  The loud tone of his voice startled her into jumping and looking up.  “I’m sorry.  I just…”  He sighed, running his fingers through his hair.  “I’m gonna tell you something that I wouldn’t dare tell anyone else here.”

She nodded to show that she understood the seriousness of whatever he was about to share, though she couldn’t imagine what could possibly make him want to confide in her.

“I used to be in a similar position to you.  Not… exactly the same, but…”

“You’re a man,” she said slowly, frowning, confused.

“Well, yeah.  Like I said, not exactly the same, but…”  He sighed, shaking his head.  “Under the old Amestrian rule, I wouldn’t have been considered one.  You know that it was bad for women before our… leadership change.  It was bad for people like me, too.  Rebecca went the other way; I also saw it happen in reverse.  You see…”  He grimaced.  “I can’t really think of any way to explain it that isn’t _wrong._  Some people might call it being born a woman, or in a woman’s body, or the wrong body, but it’s _not_ , because it’s mine, and I’m not a woman.  Worse people might accuse me of a woman dressing up as a man, but—I mean, you are a woman, right?  I guess I shouldn’t assume…”

She nodded hurriedly.  “I think I understand.  What you mean, I mean.  I am, but you’re not.”

“Oh, good.”  He relaxed a bit.  “Yeah, the Xerxesians have a lot of advanced medical stuff that helps me look like…”  He gestured to himself, and she nodded: he didn’t have the look of someone who was binding their breasts, and she had spotted him shaving with the others.  “Anyway.  Sorry, didn’t mean to go on about myself.  My point is, it sucked really, really badly there for a while.  I think I can kinda get what you must have gone through, some.  But… things have changed, y’know, back in Amestris?  And it’s not the only place.  The _world_ is changing, and yeah, it’s awful what happened to you, and unfair, but the fact that it is changing shows that a lot of people out there think that what you did, it wasn’t just not wrong, but it was the right thing to do.  Not your fault they can’t see it here.”

She closed her eyes and looked away.  “I deceived my prince,” she said quietly.  “That is unforgivable.”

She could hear him sigh, but she didn’t look back until he began to speak again.  “I guess there’s probably no point in trying to talk you around there,” he said quietly.  “I just… wanted to let you know, that these sorts of things, they can get better.  Don’t give up hope.”

She just swiped at her cheek to make sure that the tears hadn’t spilled over the way they were threatening to.

He cleared his throat a little awkwardly, then continued.  “And if… if you have any trouble, after this, or if you have to get out, I’m sure Mustang would take you on in a heartbeat.  I’d vouch for you.”

She tried to smile at his words, the obvious attempt at kindness, but she could put no heart in it.  These were her choices, then?  Returning home in disgrace, or exile from Xing?

“You should go,” she finally said, voice quiet.  “They’ll leave you behind.”

Jean just snorted.  “They can _try_ leaving the horse guy behind.  I’ll catch up.”  He gestured at the horses in question, and she glanced over to see that he had two of them: one chestnut, a white star on its forehead, that she recognized as Jean’s, and a smaller, unfamiliar gray.

“She was, uh, hurt in the fighting,” he said slowly, gesturing vaguely at the mare.  When Lan Fan looked, however, she could see no sign of injury.  “Couldn’t take her along.  Figured… well, if she gets left behind, no telling what happened to her.   _I_ sure don’t know.”

He pressed the reins into her hand, and she held them tightly.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

With a nod, he clapped her gently on the shoulder.  “Good luck.”  Turning, he swung himself up into the saddle, turned his horse, and trotted off after the army.  She watched him go.

When he finally vanished, she turned back to the mare, reaching up to take her face, close her eyes, and rest their foreheads together.

With the wind stirring the snow around them, it was as if they were the only two living creatures left in the world.


	11. Chapter 11

Still in pain from earlier—and _starving_ —Lan Fan set up a small fire and shelter in the shadow of a larger piece of rubble, protecting herself from the worst of the snow.  She cleared a patch of it, revealing old grass.  Well, at least her horse companion would have the option.

Finally, mare tied in place, food unwrapped, she settled back and nibbled at it as she stared into the fire.

Objectively, she had succeeded.  Her grandfather was safe, and she could return to him, resume her life.

_What life?_

But here—or there, rather—in the Xingese army, she had found something.  Friends.  Camaraderie.  That life, the one she had never been able to have before.  A cause worth fighting for.  A person worth following.

To have that dangled in front of her, then snatched away, was crueler than never having a glimpse in the first place.

Jean had included bandages with her pack, and she was nibbling on something she barely tasted, inspecting her arm bandage to see if it needed changing, when she heard rocks shifting and tumbling.

She froze, mind racing, and on an impulse, kicked snow over the fire, smothering it.  Reaching out to pet the gray mare gently to ensure that she stayed calm, she then peered around the chunk of wall that formed the side of her shelter.

From the middle of the rubble, shoving away such large chunks that had to be _impossible_ for any human to move, a hunched person rose from the dust.

When it cleared, she recognized the golden-haired form immediately.

Lan Fan clapped her hand to her mouth to cover her gasp, drawing back so she could barely be seen, even if Father looked straight in her direction.  Something seemed to be wrong: one of his legs was at a funny angle, as well as his arm, and his body had twisted oddly.  A huge gash cut open his stomach.

He lifted his good arm, something gleaming in his hand, and a red flash illuminated his body, so bright that she had to look away.  When the light faded, she turned back to see him stand upright, his wounds completely healed.

She should move now, she thought numbly, run forward, cut him down while he was distracted, but such _power_ …

“To me!” he cried out in a terrible voice, lifting his hand again.  Several more spots in the rubble began to move, and her blood went cold.

 _One… two… three… four…_  Lan Fan counted as more forms rose.  Seven in all.  Five men, two women: some short, some tall, some fat, some thin; but they all had one thing in common: bent grotesquely, the way Father had been.

Such a small number shouldn’t have worried her, but all of them were like Father: injured in ways that it shouldn’t be possible for a human to survive, yet rising from what should have been their death.  Seven flashes, and each of them in turn straightened, healing with what seemed to be no trace at all of their injuries.

After the final flash of red light, however, whatever Father had in his hand, a red orb of some kind, grew dark, then flashed with an explosion.

“You broke it,” one of the people—a man with dark hair and a mustache—murmured, narrowing his eyes.  “Where are we going to get another stone?”

“I don’t _need_ one,” Father spat, wiping his face, and when he turned, Lan Fan could see the fury on it.  “We can take the capital ourselves.  We _have_ to.”

He whirled, swiping his long hair out of his face with a growl, then headed towards the direction Xing’s army had taken.

Lan Fan pressed back against the wall, panting, eyes wide.  Alchemy, sorcery, _whatever_ this was, how could anyone fight against it, against immortals who couldn’t be slain?

She wrapped her arms around her knees, listening to the sounds of them retreating into the distance.

She could run, could get on her horse and ride off and not look back.  She could leave the army to its fate, leave the emperor, leave the entire country who would turn its back on her and do the same to them.

She stared at the backs of her hands, chapped from the cold.

There really was only one answer.

She shoved the remaining food into her mouth, standing cautiously, to ensure that no one else was left.  Shoving the rest of her things into her bag, she tied it over the gray horse’s back, then swung up herself.

It had been years since she had ridden a horse, but it came back to her enough that the mare responded quickly to her directions.

With a “Hiya!” and a kick of her heels, she started the horse trotting, then cantering, then galloping towards the horizon.

—

The plan had been to beat both armies to the Imperial City.

She had a horse, after all; it would make sense to do so.  But more than a couple of problems came into play, ones that she kicked herself for not seeing beforehand.

She had never _been_ to the Imperial City, and she couldn’t just follow Ling or Father.  Running into them would cause a whole separate set of issues.  No, heading them off would be the wisest course of action.

However, a solitary girl on back roads asking for directions was more likely to garner mistrustful looks than actual assistance.

And, of course, when she finally did reach the City, days later, the guards blocked her entrance to the palace quarter.

“It’s been filled up since this morning,” one of them said stiffly, giving her a look of disdain that made her narrow her eyes right back.  “Celebrations of victory.”

So she hadn’t headed Ling off, then.  Damn it all.

She whirled away and began her search for a cheap stable.  She wasn’t going to let this stop her, but neither was she going to waste Jean’s kindness and let harm come to her faithful mare.  She left it with a man who had instructions to care for her for three days, and if Lan Fan weren’t back by then, he could keep the horse.

And then she dressed herself.

Though evening quickly approached, it was still much brighter than the middle of the night, and with the amount of lanterns being lit, would be for quite some time.  Also, the Imperial guards were much more thorough and plentiful than the Xerxesian sentries she had bested all those weeks ago.  As such, she didn’t manage to make it over the wall until the sun had already set and the celebrations had begun.

She took a moment before beginning her search to perch in a tree, take the entire sight in, scanning for any threats.

People packed the courtyard, and she highly doubted that she could get through, not without being crushed or at least punched for trying to take someone’s place.  Some had the same idea as her, climbing the trees to get a better look.

She had never seen a mass of humanity this dense before, not who weren’t trying to kill each other, and the riotous display of colors and designs dazzled even her serious demeanor.  Silks in every color imaginable, poor standing next to rich (though not too rich; those were in palanquins carried by servants), expressions hopeful and excited and joyous _._  Lanterns lit the area almost as brightly as day, and cracks and pops sounded ahead as a tower on the other side set of fireworks of celebration.

From a distance, she caught sight of the procession, even recognized the black and gold horses at the front.   _Ling._  More celebrators surrounded them, acrobats and fire eaters and dancers and a giant, grinning dragon, an elaborate contraption that the men underneath manipulated, dancing along behind them.

“Hey, get down from there!”

Lan Fan jumped slightly, blinking down at the scowling guard.

“I was just…”

“Don’t care!  No one’s allowed in the trees!”

She glanced around to see that other spectators were suffering the same fate, and rather than arguing, she climbed down quickly.

But then, here was a guard.

“Wait—before I—I need your help,” she gasped.  “The enemy, Father, he’s in the city, and he’s brought some of his best—”

The guard scoffed, giving her a critical look up and down.  She knew she must look odd: where everyone else was wearing their festival vest, she had opted for black leather armor over a hooded shirt, even if the hood was back, pooled around her shoulders.  She had chosen her gauntlets and shoulder armor again in the event that fighting broke out.

“Please, girl, you’re not going to have me running off so you can get your seat back.  Get out of here!”  He lowered his spear a bit, not truly threateningly but enough to send Lan Fan scurrying backwards, face twisting with bitterness.

Of course no one was going to listen to a girl in a strange outfit.  That left her only one choice.

She jogged the border of the crowd before finally picking a gap to dive into, and then used her armored bits to make her advance easier—though she certainly earned herself several glares and curses in the process.

“ _Ling!_ ”

He turned at the sound of his name, and for a moment, just a tiny moment, she thought she saw his expression brighten, a smile on his face—

And then he caught sight of her, and a scowl had replaced it so quickly she wondered if she had imagined it.

“What are you doing here?” he snapped, striding over as she tumbled out of the crowd.  From behind him, she caught familiar faces—Ed, Al, Roy, Rebecca, Roksana, Hawkeye—but he quickly blocked her.

“I…” she panted, the trek through the crowd having taken more out of her than she thought.  “I came to warn you.  Father is back—I saw him, after you left, he rose out of the mess like a ghost—!”

“Do you think I’m _stupid_ , Lan Fan?” he spat, and she flinched away.  “What is your purpose?  Are you trying to sabotage me?  Smear me as a liar after I have declared our victory?  Is this _revenge?_ ”

“No!” she burst out, gasping as if she had been slapped.  “I’m just afraid!  I saw him, I swear— _!_ ”

“And why,” he interrupted coldly,  “should I believe you?  Guard!”

One rushed over immediately, taking her arm and pulling her back.  Those familiar faces watched the two of them warily, but if anyone thought about making a move towards her, she imagined a glare from Ling letting them know that such an action would not be tolerated.  He might not be the only royal out of all of them, but he was still royalty of this country, and opposing him would be either literal or political suicide, depending on the perpetrator’s country of origin.

The guard yanked her back, and she followed, offering no resistance to being dragged backwards as she watched the procession make its way to the Emperor, the entertainers and massive dragon following until they reached the foot of the dais.  When they did, Ling ascended alone, dropping to one knee.

“Your Imperial Majesty,” he called out, pitching his voice to be heard above the crowd., “and honored father.  I come bearing news of our enemy’s defeat.”

Emperor Wu Yao inclined his head in a nod.  Though Lan Fan had not expected him to look the way he did, she could certainly see the familial resemblance.  A graying man of sixty-some years with a small, neat mustache and beard, he had more the sharp and canny look of a general, the stance of a man who could act quickly, than the slow regality she had expected from an Emperor.  His wrinkles came not just from age, she could tell, but concern, marks of cunning and intelligence.  He seemed unfazed by the riotous celebrations, the entertainers, the enormous dragon costume lurking behind Ling’s men, right in Yao’s line of sight.

“I have heard the story of how you led our forces to victory—”

The ground shook, cutting Wu off—and with no further warning, exploded.

Wu whirled at the sound from behind him, stumbling back at the sudden gaping hole that had emerged—but a form, one that Lan Fan never wanted to see again, leaped out, rushing the emperor, grabbing him in a hold around his neck and dragging him back towards the palace.

“Move, and I snap his neck!” Father snarled, a vicious expression twisting his face.

Everyone froze: the crowd in the midst of their celebrations, the army and guards in the midst of lunging forward, Ling with his hand on the hilt of his sword.

Lan Fan caught the quiet fury on Emperor Yao’s face, a sharp contrast to Father’s twisted hatred.

An arrow zipped past them, dangerously close to Father’s head, and he snarled, whipping out a long knife and pressing the blade up against the Emperor’s neck.  A handful of guards lunged forward, but froze again as the knife drew blood.

“Keep them out of the palace!” Father snarled, yanking the Emperor backwards, towards the giant, ornate door.  The seven that Lan Fan had seen rise from the remains of the fortress followed, two of the largest men Lan Fan had ever seen dragging the door open for Father to disappear inside.  It slammed shut behind them, and a _thud_ from inside told her that something very heavy had just been dropped in front of it.

Guards and soldiers swam forward the moment it shut, trying to wrench it open, and she watched helplessly as they discovered what she had suspected.

“Move the fuck aside!”

Ed shoved his way up to the door, clapping his hands together in the way that she had seen him use his alchemy before.  She should have felt her heart leap at that, glad that they had a way to make it through the door, but somehow she knew that Father wouldn’t make it that easy.

Ed slammed his hands onto the door and—nothing happened.

She exhaled, turning away, leaving the group of men to figure out what to do next.  A few were pointing at one of the massive dragon statues, making motions as if to use it for a battering ram, the way they had broken the Xerxesian base.  She debated telling them that it would never work, that they would never reach the Emperor, but they wouldn’t listen.  She turned away.  Lan Fan had her own methods for dealing with this.

Head tilted back, she began to turn in a circle, looking for something she had spotted earlier…

There.

Loosening the hood around her neck, she started forward.

The fireworks tower ended up being the easiest thing she had climbed in quite some time.

She had expected more resistance, given the capital’s level of security: arrows, maybe, or at least someone shouting for her to get down again.  The tower, however, with its ornate decorative carvings and protrusions, even had built in hand- and footholds, and everyone seemed to be so preoccupied with the Emperor’s kidnapping that they didn’t have the inclination to notice an out-of-place girl.

She would need to talk to the emperor about that security vulnerability when she rescued him, she thought as she climbed, the giddiness of the thought a result of her trying to tamp down her anxiety.

When she paused right below the top ledge, she reached back to slip her mask on, then her hood.  This got easier every time, she thought with a resigned sigh.

With a flex of her arms, she shoved herself over the ledge, pushing hard enough that she managed to become airborne for a few seconds and land on her feet, crouching and leaning forward to retain her balance.  To an onlooker, of course, she looked hunched over and terrifying _._

The first man to see her, painted mask flickering in the torchlight, dropped the firework he was holding with an alarmed croak.  The other man turned at the noise, and the one he made was definitely more of a shriek _._

She screamed back, lifting her hands in those mock claws again and lunging forward.

The two of them wasted no time in leaping over the far edge of the tower, still screaming, and when she peered over, they had descended the ladder so quickly that they were nearly on the ground already.

Exhaling with relief, she drew back, glancing around at her spoils.  Though they had been made for entertainment, the smell of the gunpowder in the air and a quick inspection told her that she now had access to more explosives than she could possibly need for one evening.

Well, probably.

For the first time this evening, she allowed herself to relax with a small amount of relief, allowed her lips to curve into a smile.

—

When she returned to the front of the palace, they had managed to get the statue down and were, in fact, using it as a battering ram.  Ling, Roy, Al, Ed, Jean… everyone seemed to be dead set on busting the door down.  It, however, had much more durability than the gate from that last battle.  It seemed like years ago.

“It’s not going to work!”

They turned to look at her, eyes wide.  Ling watched her warily, but she ignored the dig in her gut.

“Alchemy?” she panted, looking at Ed.  He shook his head.

“Looks like he’s got an array—alchemy thing—set up that blocks transmutations.”  He gestured at the door, which had circles and other designs written in chalk.  She assumed that they were something that had to do with alchemy, but the only important thing was that they apparently hadn’t worked.

“How do we stop it?”

“We get inside.”  Grimacing, Ed turned back to the door.  “We can disrupt the array from inside there, if we can find it.  Al and I should be able to, but… well, we’ve gotta get in there first.”

“How many people will we need?”

Ed shifted, glancing around at no one in specific, then lowered his voice.  “Those… those people Father had with them?  They’re not human.  They’re called Homunculi, and they’ve been created with alchemy.  We’re gonna need as many people as we can, and they’d better be damn good fighters, or we’re done for.  If we aren’t already.”

“I saw,” she said quietly.  “When they came up from the collapsed tower.  They looked like they should have been dead, but Father healed them.”

Ed grimaced, then nodded.  Some of the other men started looking anxious, inching away from Lan Fan.  She sized up the group: she could get a handful in.  It might be trickier to move them _around_ without being noticed, but…

“Anyone who wants to take on Homunculi, this way,” she called, turning her back and heading for a corner of the palace where she could plot in peace.

The turnout was well enough: Ed, Al, Roy, Rebecca, Jean, Hawkeye (who had given Lan Fan permission to call her Riza!), and the Xerxesian woman named Roksana who Ed explained was a personal guard and one of their best.  Good enough for Lan Fan.

Though she did have to ignore the twist in her chest when she saw that Ling was not among them.

“First of all,” Lan Fan began, “we’re a larger group.  We’ll need a distraction to make them think we’re still trying to get in through the front gate.”

“Not a problem,” Roy replied immediately.  “Havoc, you and Fuery have done this before.  You still have the wigs, right?”

Jean grimaced.  “Really, chief?  You’re cuttin’ me out?”

Roy shrugged.  “You make a _very_ convincing me, and Fuery pulls off a good Hawkeye when he removes the glasses.  Enough of our armies will go along with it that the Xingese and the loyal Xerxesians should follow suit.”

With a salute and a sigh, Jean turned, jogging back towards

“There’s another thing you all need to know,” Al began, glancing over his shoulder.  “Father stole a… Xerxesian weapon.  The reason he’s so powerful, the reason he can ignore alchemic laws, is because of that weapon.  If we can take it from him, we’ll need to.  It’s called the Philosopher’s Stone.”

“Is it red?”

Everyone looked back at Lan Fan, and Al blinked.  “Yes, how did—”

“It broke.”

They all simply stared at her, and she glanced around uncertainly, then continued.

“While he was healing them.  From their injuries.  And his own.  He held up this… orb, stone, whatever it was, that glowed red, but it shattered when he finished.”

She could see the three Xerxesians sag with relief.  “Oh, thank fuck,” Ed murmured.  “We’re not as screwed after all.”

She nodded at him, far more confidently than she felt.  “So, I can get us inside.  It would be much better to go in quietly instead of announcing our presence, so blowing up the door is out.  The trick is going to be avoiding being noticed, if these Homunculi are as dangerous as they seem.  How is everyone at stealth?”

At that, she received several less confident expressions, and even one rather guilty one from Ed when she gave him a hard look.  She let out a sigh; this was going to be interesting.

“You know,” Rebecca began slowly, “I think I might have an idea.”  She glanced between her, Roksana, Lan Fan, and Riza.  “Us girls tend to be overlooked, right?  Especially here.”

“Yes,” Lan Fan replied, watching her carefully, and Rebecca beamed at her.

“Didn’t Ling mention that his dad kept concubines?”


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't forget to check out the awesome art at chapters 1, 8, and 9!
> 
> Chapter 13 will be up later tonight.

[ ](http://jacktsuki.tumblr.com/post/149955967778/)

_Art by[Jacktsuki](http://jacktsuki.tumblr.com/)_

  


* * *

  


Though Lan Fan had expected Riza to be less than comfortable in a dress, she had to admit that she pulled it off _stunningly_ , elegant and beautiful with her hair up.  Rebecca did as well; Roksana not so much, but she’d manage.  Roy, despite his short hair, was probably the best of the lot: he had the walk down perfectly, and it was his skill with makeup that truly sold the charade.  (“I grew up in a brothel,” he cheerfully told a blushing Lan Fan; she was so quick to change the subject that she didn’t even think to ask how someone with that sort of upbringing had ended up in a position of such power.)  Al would be well enough, like Roksana.

Ed… well, Lan Fan had seen worse disasters.  Probably.  She told him to keep in the back of the group.

Herself, she opted to keep her own clothing; _she_ didn’t need the help blending in.

“So,” she began, giving them a look-over.  “I think we might be able to pull this off.”

“With this group?  Somehow I doubt that,” a familiar voice drawled from behind them.

That.  That cocky, familiar voice left her bristling.  This time, the hurt that followed the sound of Ling’s voice came with a sharper edge of anger _._  Yes, he might not be willing to help, but he didn’t have to _mock_ her when he was just sitting on his ass and—!

She whirled, about to give Ling the tongue lashing of his life, and her mouth fell open.

Ling, dressed in gorgeous hanfu, golden with red and turquoise embroidery, smirked back at her.  She recognized the clothing: it was one of the sets they had put aside after Lan Fan had pointed out that yellow and gold should generally not be worn by anyone not royalty.  Ed had shrugged and transmuted another, an easy enough task outside the range of Father’s array.

“After all, no one pulls off hanfu like I do.”

She did have to admit: he looked good.  He knew how to make it hang from all the right places, walk in a way to flatter the clothing, and his makeup was flawless.  And the way he wore it, glanced down at it, the way his fingers brushed against the silk, it seemed to make him comfortable.  Seemed like he belonged in it.  Though Roy had offered an explanation for his familiarity, Lan Fan had to wonder at Ling’s.

“Eight against eight,” he offered, expression slipping a little from cockiness to uncertain hope at the greeting of silence.  “Makes it even, right?”

Lan Fan continued to watch him for several moments before finally nodding slowly.  “Yes, it does.”

When she went to turn back to her group, he caught her wrist, tugging at it slightly.  “Can we talk?”

With a glance over her shoulder to nod at her assembled group, she followed him back to a more secluded area, watching him a little warily.  When they finally stopped, she opened her mouth to head off any argument.

“I’m sorry,” he began quietly, not letting go of her wrist as he looked up at her, expression serious.  “I should have listened, from the beginning.  I was angry, and hurt, and that doesn’t excuse my actions.  I know I’ve hurt you.”  His hand slid from his wrist to her hand, and he ran a thumb over her palm, leaving her heart practically doing cartwheels, before he dropped it.  “And I don’t deserve your forgiveness, not after everything I’ve done.  But If I can, I’d like to try to earn it.”  He hesitated, and Lan Fan didn’t know how to react, how to do anything other than stare at him, stunned.

“We…” she finally managed to begin, swallowing.  “We could use your help.  Like you said.  Eight against eight.”

She could see a bit of a mask slide up behind his eyes, and he nodded, stepping back, inclining his head.  She chewed on her lip for a moment, then continued.

“As for… the rest of it, let’s get through this alive, all right?”

Months ago, she never would have picked up on the nearly imperceptible way a small amount of tension eased from his shoulder muscles, but when she saw it, she couldn’t help but smile just a tiny bit in response.

“Sounds like a plan, boss.”

“Yes,” she shot back, smile growing.  “Yes, tonight I most definitely am.”

“Are we ready?” Rebecca called.  “Or are you two going to stare at each other all night?”

Lan Fan turned, smirking a little and raising an eyebrow.  “And for _that_ ,” she replied, “you get to go first.”

—

“You do this often?” Riza gritted out, inching slowly along the top of the roof to leave more room as Lan Fan pulled Roksana up beside them.  The climbing hadn’t gone so terribly well, but it was easy enough to hoist the group onto the rooftop herself once she had secured the rope.  After Roksana, the only one left would be Ed, and then they could continue on.

“It’s really not that hard once you get used to it,” Lan Fan murmured, only slightly paying attention.  “Just have to keep your balance.”

“Oh, right.  No big deal, really.  Just keep my balance.”  Riza huffed.  “My respect for you grows more every minute.”

Lan Fan allowed herself a small smile and flush, and after finishing pulling Ed up she darted around Riza easily, leaving her swearing.  So maybe she was the one showing off now; she had earned it.

“This way, everyone.”  She waved them along.  Charting out a route that would get them inside the palace, if everyone managed to stay upright, had been easy enough to do by sight.  There would be no going back for anyone who fell.

She had to glare over her shoulder a couple of times at some muffled yelps, and Roy at least had the decency to look chastised under her gaze.  She wasn’t sure of the other culprits, but she suspected Al, though his expression was far too innocent to prove anything.

“Here we are,” she murmured, completely unwinded, in contrast to the panting behind her.  She pointed at a window, the glass gleaming slightly in the moonlight.

“It’s closed,” Ling protested.  “Those windows are sealed.  They don’t even open from the inside.”

Lan Fan turned to give him a bit of an exasperated look, knowing that even the darkness wouldn’t be able to hide the fondness lurking in it.  With a shake of her head and a roll of her eyes, she turned back to the window, giving it a short, sharp punch with her gauntleted hand.  Cracks spiderwebbed across it, and another blow shattered a hole with as much stealth as breaking glass allowed.

“Careful on your way in,” she murmured, brushing the rest of the glass shards aside with her armor to allow them all easier entrance.

“I definitely didn’t see you destroy Imperial property,” Ling murmured as he crawled in behind her, and Lan Fan snorted.

“You all vandalized a giant statue in front of the palace.  Mine is a relatively minor infraction here.”

“Point.”  He brushed off his hanfu, the rest following suit, and glanced around.  “So, your alchemy array.  Where do we find it?”

Ed and Al both stepped forward, each of them clapping their hands together and placing them on opposite walls.  Al lifted his head, pointing off in one direction.  “There, I think.  Seems like that’s where the resistance is strongest.”

Ling brightened a little.  “Actually, you alchemists use circles, right?  Would it need to reach all of the palace?”

“Yes, or around it.”

“Well, if it would need to be in a giant circle around the whole palace, I think I might know where they’ve created it.”

Lan Fan let him take the lead, following him through ornate rooms as she tried not to gape, up stairways whose gilding on the railings cost more than the Xiu family’s entire house.  She caught a couple sights of courtiers, mostly women dressed similarly, all who gasped and scurried away at the sight of them.  So the homunculi had made their presence known.

Speaking of which.

Two of them, the giant men from earlier, strode down the hall, right in their path.  Lan Fan inhaled sharply, then hissed, “Cover me.”

The rest of their groups closed ranks to conceal her clothing, and Lan Fan popped a fan over her face.  The rest followed suit.  Ling, still in the lead, kept his eyes down, shifting over to the side to allow them to pass.

They barely took notice, apparently not the brightest of Father’s group.  Lan Fan took the opportunity to get a closer look: the first, shorter and fatter, was bald with a bit of a vacant expression on his face.

“I’m hungry,” she heard him whine in a high-pitched voice.  “Can I eat some of them?   _Please?_ ”

Lan Fan tensed for action, hand slipping slowly to her thigh in the event that she needed to grab a knife.

“Boss says no,” the second rumbled, tall and so solidly built that he resembled a tree or boulder formation more than a human being.  “Not yet.  Control Emperor first.”

“But I’m _hungry!_ ” the first homunculus whined again.  Thankfully, however, they passed by in relative peace.

Lan Fan shuddered, trying not to feel too sick to her stomach.  She could see a couple around them follow suit.

“Thought we were in for a massive shitfest there,” Rebecca murmured, shaking her head.  “I don’t even want to know what he meant.”

“I don’t think any of us do,” Riza sighed.

Ling quickened his pace.  “Almost there.”

Unfortunately, as they grew closer, another homunculus barred their path.

This one, Lan Fan also recognized.  She had seen him back at the site of their battle, a mustached man with brown hair and a cold demeanor.  From this distance, Lan Fan could also see that he was missing an eye—and looked Amestrian.

An inhalation of breath beside her made her glance over at Roy.

“That’s—that’s Bradley,” he breathed, eyes wide behind his fan.  “The former leader of Amestris.  We held a coup, threw him out—I thought he was dead.  What’s he doing here?”

“Father probably saved him and turned him,” Ed whispered back.  “We don’t really know how he’s managed to create the homunculi, but it seems that he can make them from human beings, too.”

“That’s revolting,” Riza muttered.  “Be careful, then.  He’s an excellent fighter, and we don’t want him to recognize us.”

Lan Fan nodded, ducking her head yet again.  The man—homunculus—walked closer, and out of the corner of her eye, she could see him shoot them an uninterested glance.

A few moments after he passed them, she let out a relieved breath.

“Hold it.”

Lan Fan’s breath stopped for a moment as she debated whether to freeze or to continue onwards as if she hadn’t heard anything.  Her mind flew immediately to Ed, his disguise the least adept of them all, concealed at the back of the group.  She started to turn, as subtly as she could—

A blade rushed towards the Xerxesian prince, nearly faster than she could see.  She didn’t have time to—to move, to draw, to yell, to do _anything._

Immediately, Roksana was in front of Ed, fan whirling to the ground, blocking him from being struck down by the man’s vicious attack.

For a moment, Lan Fan could do nothing but gape.  Where had Roksana kept her weapon?  When had she armed herself?  But there she was, in front of them all, holding off not one, but both of Bradley’s swords with her own.

“Go!” she cried, shoving him backwards, blocking another swipe, both in quick succession.

Lan Fan didn’t hesitate before bolting.  She had seen fine swordsmanship before.  Roksana’s didn’t even begin to compare: in those few moves, it had been nearly godlike.  If she couldn’t defeat Bradley, Lan Fan had little hope for the rest of them.

Ling kept pace alongside her, pointing at another doorway.  She burst through it, then skidded to a stop as the night air hit her face, barely stopping from catapulting over the railing.  Someone, probably Ling, slammed into her back, but she dug in her heels for that and the next three impacts, then stepped to the side.

“Here we go.”

Lan Fan turned to face Al, then in the direction of his finger.  She could see softly shining symbols set into the arc of what was clearly a giant circle, continuing around the edges of the building.

“A walkway,” Ling panted.  “People use it to get some air, go for a walk, without actually having to go… outside-outside.”

“What a luxury,” Lan Fan murmured neutrally.

“This needs to go,” Ed muttered, glaring down at the… no, not drawings.  Carvings.  Unable to just be wiped away.

“Will a gap do it?” Lan Fan asked, and Ed nodded.

“Back, everyone back.”  She reached out an arm, ushering them all along the walkway, then pulled out a bomb.

“Oh, _wow_ ,” Ling breathed.  Lan Fan furiously ignored the awed tone in his voice—and the flush creeping up her own cheeks.

“Once this goes off, we’ll have to run.  Father will probably know that something is wrong, and it will draw the rest of the homunculi.  And he might know that his array has been broken?”  At Ed’s nod, she continued.  “Ling, do you know where he would have taken the Emperor?”

He nodded.  “They wouldn’t kill him, if he’s a hostage, and they’d want to keep him visible so no one storms the palace.  So they know he’s alive.”

“And we still have the homunculi to worry about.  Ed, Al, how do we kill them?”

He shrugged a little hopelessly.  “Hit them as hard as you can.  Slice them up.”  He raised an eyebrow at Roy.  “Burn them to a crisp.  They’re not human, so don’t hesitate, got it?”

Rebecca huffed.  “We’re gonna need weapons for that.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that.”  Ed grinned, almost maniacally, as he clapped his hands together.  “Now that we’re done with this sneaky shit?  I’m your man.”

—

The first of the homunculi moved in as they ascended the next flight of stairs.

The woman with wavy black hair and pale skin snarled and lunged, her fingers extending, fingertips sharpened, in Lan Fan’s direction.  Lan Fan dodged, deflecting the fingers with her gauntlet and a yelp.  Rebecca moved in turn as well, swinging the massive axe that Ed had transmuted for her at the extended fingers, slicing them off and earning a scream from the homunculus.

Three arrows hissed through the air, thudding into the second homunculus, fired with such force that they pinned the homunculus to the wall.  They growled, struggling against the arrows, and Lan Fan got a close-up look of the shortest of the group for the first time: long hair, gender indeterminate, slim and squirmy.

She had to turn away as their skin started shifting; while she didn’t have a weak stomach, some things were just _too_ much.

She turned back to the other homunculus, the woman—and a massive wall of fire arced across the ground between them, trapping both homunculi on the side of the hallway from which they had just come.  When she whirled, eyes wide, looking for a cause, she caught sight of Roy and Riza, trapped on the other side of the blaze.  Roy had his arm outstretched, a white glove on his hand, a furious gleam in his eye that bordered on the mania on Ed’s face earlier.

“Go,” he growled, snapping his fingers again.  Another rush of flame flashed out from his hand with a crackle that Lan Fan was beginning to recognize as alchemy.  It curved around the second homunculus, cutting them off as well.  “We’ll take care of these.”

“Be careful,” Ed called, but when Lan Fan glanced over at him, she could see a gleam of pride on his face that reminded her a bit of Ling’s when he looked at—

Anyway.  “Let’s go.”  Lan Fan motioned for the rest of them, talking a head count.  Ling, Rebecca, Al, Ed, and herself.

As they jogged up the next—and, Ling swore, last—set of stairs, a piercing scream sounded from below.  A woman’s scream.

“Someone being burned alive?” Al panted, voice wry.

“Taught him well,” Ed replied, and Lan Fan could hear the proud grin in his voice.

“The fact that you get all romantic about him being destructive worries me more than a little—”

“ _Hungry!_ ”

Lan Fan didn’t know the Amestrian word that Rebecca had just spat as they rounded the corner and nearly tripped into the small group, but she suspected that it was something Ed would have said if she hadn’t beaten him to it.

Lan Fan counted four more homunculi in their way: the two enormous men from earlier, a smaller man in a bizarre jacket, and another woman, this one with brown hair and a cold demeanor.

Rebecca didn’t give them time to react: she went straight for the biggest, yelling as she swung, burying her axe into his boulder of a leg.

It stuck, and Rebecca had to gasp and jump away as the homunculus let out a loud yell and staggered backwards, swiping with his massive arms.  Lan Fan, trying to rush over to help, found herself faced with the second giant homunculus between them, his jaw wide and grotesquely distended, his enormous tongue salivating.

With a curse, she yanked a smoke bomb out and pulled the pin with her teeth, chucking it over his head to land between Rebecca and her attacker, providing her with some cover.

Lan Fan then deflected the homunculus lunging at her with her gauntlets: Ed had added some spikes and, most importantly, a long arm guard that ran parallel to her forearm, starting at her wrist and extending in a sharp blade past her elbow.  Not only effective, but incredibly stylish as well.

She snapped her arm backwards to elbow him in the head, the blade slicing into his mouth—

Which closed around the metal, teeth clacking, and while Lan Fan felt her arm get stuck, after a moment the resistance disappeared and she yanked it back.

The metal of the arm guard had completely vanished.  Dissolved.   _Eaten?_

She gasped and rolled away as he lunged again, this time clamping his jaws around one of the ornate pillars that stretched upwards to the roof.  When he yanked back from that, a massive hole remained, a bite mark that cut through a good half of the pillar.

She backed up further, taking a moment to check on her teammates even as her close call left her blood running cold.  Rebecca had retrieved her axe and was now using her speed to keep the enormous one on his toes.  Ling had drawn his Dao and was pushed the third man back, who had turned pure black and deflected every swing with his _bare hands._  Al and Ed had double teamed the woman, whose ability seemed to be vanishing parts of herself into thin air, then reforming.

While her opponent recovered, spinning and staggering, she took the opportunity to sprint towards Rebecca, who had maneuvered herself so the giant’s back faced the rest of the group.  Pulling out some of her knives, she threw them as she ran, burying them into the homunculus’s back and using them as climbing stones, propelling her up to the head while drawing blood and causing tissue damage and distraction at the same time.

When she reached it, she hooked her thighs around his shoulders and lifted her right arm, ramming her elbow downwards, burying the blade into the base of his skull.

She yanked it out quickly and held on for dear life as he struggled, roaring, and when she felt her grip about to slip, she backflipped off, landing in a crouch.  The homunculus tried to turn, to find who had injured him, but Rebecca’s axe biting into his side yanked his attention back to her.  Rebecca shot Lan Fan a grin, eyes gleaming, and Lan Fan nodded before scrambling over towards Ling.

Using her momentum to lunge towards Ling’s opponent, she managed to angle her legs so they slammed right into the small of his back.  Though it did no direct damage, it sent him keeling forward, face planting into the ground, _distracting_ him enough that his black skin armor, whatever it was, flickered.

She had no time to help further, however—Ed and Al were two; they’d be fine—because her own homunculus lunged towards her again, mouth opened further than should be possible, fangs now protruding out of the sides of his mouth in a way that disgustingly resembled spider mandibles.

She gasped and ran to the side, angling him away from the others.  Hit him harder?  Slice him up?  How was she supposed to without getting in range of that _mouth?_ It could eat anything, it seemed—

Realization clicking, she straightened, waving her arms.  “Hey, you freak!” she screamed.  “You hungry?  You _really_ that hungry?  Then come and eat this!”

Eyes gleaming greedily, he lunged for her again, and she turned and ran, getting further away as well as gauging his speed.  She would have to time this perfectly _._

Reaching a dead end, she skidded to a stop.  Thinking he had cornered her, he stalked forward, mandibles salivating.

The moment he got within range, she yanked out as many bombs as she could hold in her hands, all of them already live, and threw them towards his mouth.  How could she miss such a massive target?  While he swallowed what he clearly thought was a feast, cackling, she ran up the wall again, launching herself clean over the homunculus’s head and landing with a roll to break her momentum.  When she whirled, long knife raised, she caught sight of him running towards her—

And then a muffled _boom_ sounded, followed by a gruesome _splat._  She ducked, rolling again, trying to make herself a smaller target as chunks of homunculus rained down on the hall.

“Gluttony!” the enormous man bellowed, only to be cut off by a, “Shut up, Sloth!” from the cold woman, still fending off the two princes.  Lan Fan ignored them both, instead turning to ensure that Gluttony had indeed been defeated.

Unless he could come back from being a pile of sludge, they now had one less homunculus to worry about.

Jogging forward, Lan Fan took in the situation to assess who most needed help.  Before she could finish, however, she caught sight of three more forms, rounding the corner.  Gripping her knife, she ran faster—

Roksana, face and chest covered in blood, sword drawn, charged into the fray towards Sloth with a yell and an agility that told Lan Fan that the blood was not her own.  Riza let loose an arrow, and though Greed’s armor did deflect it, the man did turn, armor flickering again, allowing Ling to get a cut in.  Greed howled in pain and turned again right as Riza shot another arrow.

For his part, Roy sprinted immediately towards Ed, beating even Lan Fan there.

“She turns into water vapor, idiot,” Ed panted, though Lan Fan couldn’t miss the grin on his face.  “Your fire won’t do jack shit.”

“When this is done, we’ll teach you Xerxesians about this phenomenon called _evaporation,_ ” Roy laughed harshly, moving in to send a rush of flames towards the woman as she tried to strike at Ed.  “I’ll do more good in a few minutes than you have in all this time you’ve wasted.”

“Oh, you’re _on!_ ”

Rolling his eyes, Al detached from the fight.  “I’ll leave you lovebirds to it.”  With a nod at Lan Fan, he jogged over in her direction.

“I think we’ve got this covered.  I’ll go handle Greed; you take Ling and go rescue the Emperor, before it’s too late.”

With a nod, she headed over in Ling’s direction with Al, letting Al insert himself in the fight between Ling and Greed before grabbing Ling’s arm and dragging him along with her.

“Hey!  Wait, I almost had him—!”

“We’re here to rescue your father, not get your rocks off fighting!” she snapped, and Ling jumped.

“Right.”  He cleared his throat, shaking his arm free.  “Okay, this way.”


	13. Chapter 13

Though Ling had shed his hanfu for ease of movement, she couldn’t help but smirk slightly at the traces of makeup still on his face as they reached the final set of double doors.

“Ready?” he breathed, and she turned to him and nodded.

“Lan Fan—”  He broke off, and she watched him cautiously before he continued.  “If we don’t make it out of this, I just wanted to say…”

“Save it for when we do,” she cut in, voice forceful.  Though he jerked back slightly, startled, a few moments of taking in her determined expression and he smiled gently.

“That I will.”

She pushed open the door cautiously, creeping forward silently, Ling following.  Ahead, she could see Father, golden hair whipping in the wind, storming around Emperor Yao.

“You _will_ order your guards to stand down,” he snarled, his long, wickedly curved blade at the Emperor’s throat.  “This country is under my control now, and you will learn what it is to serve _me._ ”

“You make much noise for someone who has yet to accomplish anything,” Yao replied disinterestedly, and Lan Fan winced as the fury contorted across Father’s face.  Apparently, Ling didn’t only get his quick tongue from his mother.  “If you kill me, your leverage is gone.  You will soon be dead, and my country will remember you as a grasping, worthless man who suffered a complete and total loss.”

“No,” Father spat, straightening.  “Fine.  If you insist on dying, I will throw your head from the roof, and your grieving, weakened country _will_ fall.”

Father raised his knife—

Ling sprinted forward, lifting his Dao to knock it out of the way.  Yao stepped neatly to the side, and Lan Fan followed close on Ling’s heels, ushering Yao away from the now clashing blades.  Father howled in rage and attacked Ling with a fury of swipes, occupied for the moment.

“What is this?” Yao asked, voice cool, and when she turned, he was watching her levelly.  She found it hard to believe that moments ago, he had been staring down his nose at death.

“My—” she gasped, eyes wide as she froze.  “My name is Lan Fan, Your Majesty, I’m sorry, I’m here to—”

“Well, I should think a rescue was obvious.”  He glanced back in the direction from which they had come.  “I suppose one of my children isn’t entirely useless.  Now, how do you plan on getting me down?”

She swallowed, turning again, craning her neck towards the doors.  Please, please—

Lan Fan let out a whoop of triumphant laughter as Riza emerged through the door at a run, the rest of them— _all_ of them—close behind.  She lifted a hand to her mouth and let out a sharp, piercing whistle.

Father turned, eyeing both of them with a crazed expression in his eyes, but Ling deftly lunged in, forcing Father to block and turn his attention back away from them.

“Al!” she cried, as they drew nearer.  She gestured to the emperor, and he nodded.

“My apologies,” he said with the utmost politeness before scooping Emperor Yao up by his waist, tossing the sash he had used to tie his hanfu around the rope suspending the lanterns.  Grabbing both ends with one hand, he jumped over the balcony, hearing screams from below as he slid down.  Though Lan Fan didn’t stay to watch, murmurs of relief told them that they had landed safely.

“No!” Father screamed, and he _crackled_.  Lan Fan couldn’t see the energy, but it rolled over her almost in a physical wave.

An explosion sounded from below in the city, and screams followed.

“Fucking _booby traps!_ ” Ed shouted, eyes wide, glancing back and forth between Ling and Father, body to body, and the mass of milling, panicked people.

“Go!” she called, pointing at the rope.  “Help them!  All the alchemists—”  She took in the remaining women: they’d never leave their sovereigns.  Or… whatever the hell Amestrians had.  Lan Fan would never want them to.  Duty was something with which she was all too familiar.  She ushered them on.

Riza, Rebecca, and Roy, though Ed hesitated, glancing back at Ling, resisting Roksana’s attempts to tug him to the rope.

“I’ll help,” she hissed.  “ _Go!_ ”

“Just so you know,” he panted.  “Father, he’s on his last legs.  You get in, get a good hit, he’s done for.”

“Thank you,” she breathed, and he squeezed her hand before sliding down the rope himself.  With a grateful nod, Roksana followed.

Lan Fan made sure they landed safely, then watched Ed take off in the direction of another explosion that sounded.  If she could get them all away from Father, they could regroup and take him out—

An anguished scream rang out from behind her, and she whirled.

Father had managed to knock Ling’s Dao away with a jutting piece of wood, pinning his wrist to the ground.  A swift kick to Ling’s head, and he lay still.

Father turned then, storming in her direction, eyes on the rope, the spot where the emperor had landed.

Scrambling for one of her knives—and realizing that she was running low—she sliced through it right as he reached her.  After a moment scrambling for it as it fell, he turned and backhanded her, catching her by surprise as he sent her skidding back across the floor.

Though she saw his knife flashing down, towards her throat, her muscles wouldn’t respond, and she watched it arc towards her death.

A cry of, “Touch her and I’ll kill you!”, and a fist crashed into Father’s face.  She caught sight of Ling, stumbling back as Father turned his knife in his direction.

Unable to do anything for a moment but lie there, stunned and panting, she heard Father stalking over in Ling’s direction, growling, “You little _brat._ ”

 _Get up, get up, get UP!_ she screamed at herself, fingers scrambling to find purchase on the floor as she shoved, rising slowly.  She staggered towards Ling, barely attracting Father’s notice as he grabbed the front of Ling’s shirt.

“Kill me?  Kill _me?_  Boy, I’ll make you suffer for what you’ve taken!” he spat.  “For what you’ve _destroyed!_ ”

This time, Ling was the one in the way of Father’s knife.  Gripping her last knife, she finally pushed herself to her feet, aimed, and threw.

“Try again!” she cried as he whirled, and when she was sure she had his attention, she reached up, grabbed her mask, and yanked it down onto her face.

Father’s hand uncurled, and Ling slumped to the ground, unmoving.

“You,” he growled, eyes wide.

Not waiting for him to start ranting on about something again, she turned and fled.

Down the stairs, slam the door, bolt it, and run _._  She heard a crash from behind her, and then the crackling of poorly controlled alchemy that almost instantly fizzled out.

She could run, at least, and if she could get downstairs, that would give Ling time to get out.

As she rounded the corner to the site of their battle with the Homunculi, she splashed through a pool of blood, skidded, and crashed onto the floor, face first.

By the time she managed to roll onto her feet, Father was on her.

She dodged to the side, barely, but tripped on the still slippery floor again, grabbing onto a column for support: the same column that Gluttony had bitten a chunk out of earlier.  Father slammed his hands to the ground, the lightning of his alchemy hissing and spitting as it raced towards her—then coughed and sputtered out.

For a moment, she allowed herself a sigh of relief.

The column let out a groan, crackling, then tipped out towards the wall, straight towards crushing her.

Lan Fan yelped and jumped back at an angle to avoid being squished, then had to dodge Father’s knife, swiping so close that it grazed her clothing.  She staggered backwards, trying to climb over the column, but Father struck again, forcing her backwards, back across the fallen column.

Wind tugged at her bangs, brushing them across her face.  She swallowed and glanced down, then immediately wished that she hadn’t.

Three stories below her, people scattered, gasping.  No one wanted to be underneath if she fell.

Lan Fan swallowed and continued to step backwards, slowly.  Father stepped up as well, grinning viciously at the sight of Lan Fan, stuck on the overhanging column as he herded her further out into open air.  He clapped his hands, sparks flickering from them, then slammed them onto the column.

Nothing happened.  Father stared at his hands in shock, eyes narrowing.   _Drained dry._

Lan Fan reached for a knife—none left.   _That makes two of us._

He rushed her, knife swinging, eyes crazed, clearly determined that if he was going down, she was going down with him.  Without his alchemy, however, Father was just a man; a fighting one, yes, but Lan Fan was a damn good fighter herself.

She crouched, ducking under his outstretched arm, grabbing it, planting her feet, and whirling to fling him off the edge of the column.

She had never executed a throw more perfectly in her life, she thought to herself as she watched him arc, almost in slow motion, watched him tumble backwards—

Until his hand snagged itself on her gauntlet, digging its fingers in and dragging her with it.

She screamed as he yanked her down off the edge of the column, barely managing to grab one of the massive splinters from where it had come loose from the roof.  She could hear shocked gasps and terrified cries from below her, and as she dangled off the side of the palace, she caught the gleam of Father’s knife as it tumbled to the ground—and shattered.

Her left arm wrenched in its socket as Father tried to climb up it, and she screamed again, feeling her arrow wound reopen as well.  She gripped as tightly as she could with her right, shaking her left to keep Father from gaining any height.

She could let go now, she realized, glancing back down at his furious face.  She could drop, and she would die, but Father would die with her, and she would have saved Xing and redeemed her family’s name.

_But I want to live._

With a groan, she drew herself up with her right arm, shaking with the effort, gasping, but she couldn’t bring her head to crest the top of the column—

Right as her numb fingers began to slip, a pair of hands gripped her wrist, yanking her upwards.

She gasped when she saw Ling’s face, as terrified as she felt, relief flooding through her.  He continued to pull, high enough that he managed to get his arms underneath hers, but when her back hit the column, he stopped.

“Lan Fan,” he gasped, and though she was facing outwards, away from his face, she could hear the fear in his voice.  “It’s—the two of you are too heavy, I can’t—”

She let out another scream of pain as Father tried to climb again, flailing her free right arm to try and get a grip on the column, to help Ling pull her upwards.

Her bladed arm guard glanced off the wood, and she froze, a plan blooming.

“Just a minute longer,” she gasped to Ling, yanking off her belt sash, then reaching into her clothes and pulling out the last of the explosives.  These three had pins, her favorites: tiny, timed, and just one of them had a blast radius that could destroy them all.

She lifted them to her mouth and pulled out the pins with her teeth.

“Whoa, whoa, hang on!” Ling gasped, and she could see his wide-eyed expression in her mind’s eye.  “Don’t—”

But she ignored him, wrapping the three in her sash, then wrapping them around her arm.  Father’s eyes widened in fury.

“Lan Fan, what are you—!“

With a deep, steadying breath, Lan Fan steeled herself and closed her eyes.

The moonlight gleamed off the light of her blade as she lifted it, then brought it down, putting as much force as she had left in her body into the swing as she drove it into her left shoulder.


	14. Chapter 14

The world began to resolve back into shape.

She wasn’t entirely sure how long she had stared into space: the image of Father’s falling body, the explosions that had ripped through it, scattering pieces of him and her arm over the city, seemed permanently etched onto her eyelids.  She had barely registered when Ling had pulled her up, laid her flat, lifted her legs for a few moments, murmuring that he was checking for blood circulation.

Distantly, she could feel the arm under her legs as Ling carried her through hallways, down stairways; feel herself panting for air as her skin went cold; feel the cloth pressed into what was left of the stump of her arm that he held there tightly.

She could also hear whispers, murmurs, caught sight of frightened courtiers peering out of rooms, gaping at the sight of their prince carrying a bloody woman through the hallways.

She began to turn her head, better than she was earlier, remembering how to breathe, how to see straight.

“We won,” she said quietly, staring at the enormous door in front of them, the exit out of which they would walk and face—face the Emperor.  Face _Xing._

She had escaped with her life for breaking the law once before, but she had no doubt that by now Au Chu had filled the Emperor in with every dirty little detail.  Her charade was up.  She had rolled the dice, and this was her lot.

“Put me down,” she breathed, but Ling was already moving to do so.  “I don’t want them to see me like…”

“I understand,” Ling murmured, steadying her as she found her feet.

The debris had been moved already, and she wondered how it had vanished, where it had gone.

When Ling opened the door, six eager faces awaited them.

Riza, Rebecca, Ed, Roy, Al, and Roksana all rushed in, varying expressions of concern on their faces. Most of them turned to terror when they saw her stump of an arm; some—Ed’s and Al’s—resignation and sympathy.

“I’m all right,” she murmured as she stepped outside, appreciating that they surrounded her, kept up a wall between her and the onlookers—

A gasp from those onlookers, and her escorts all froze.  Ahead of her, from the small gap between Roy and Ling, Lan Fan could see Emperor Yao approaching.

Beside her, she could see Ed stiffen, hackles raising, but she placed a hand on her shoulder.

“Please move,” she whispered.

Though Ling shot her a stricken glance, he didn’t disobey, and Lan Fan lowered the blood-soaked cloth, ignoring the slight stream that still trickled from where her arm had once been.  She bowed as soon as Ling and Roy separated to reveal her to the emperor.  Au Chu stood to the side, eyes narrowed.

“Lan Fan Xiu,” he said, after a few moments of silence.

She winced.  So much for hoping that her family’s name would be kept out of this.

“I’ve been told very much about you.  Daughter of a traitor, you deceived a member of the Imperial Family to join the army, forbidden for a woman.  Punishable by death!”

Lan Fan flinched at the words, mortification beginning to seep through every remaining limb in her body.

“And when your deception was discovered, when your life was spared, instead of taking this mercy, you then proceed to ride for the Imperial City—on a stolen Amestrian horse!—and destroy my palace!”

Lan Fan’s hand shook, and she tried to control her terror, praying that if she were to be executed, it would be quick—

A hand reached out, fingers touching gently under her chin, and lifted her to look into the Emperor’s grateful eyes.

“I owe you my life, and my country.  Both Xerxes and Amestris can say only the same.”

Lan Fan watched in—horror?  Awe?—as the Emperor inclined, head lowering…

He was bowing.  Bowing to _her._

She could hear shocked murmurs in the crowd around her, and whirled to see that he wasn’t the only one: all seven of her team had knelt, as had others nearby with the formal clothing of courtiers, officials, and nobility.  Au Chu had thrown himself flat on his face.  One of the men she spotted, a golden-haired and skinned Xerxesian, had a similar look to Ed and Al about him, though older and bearded.

When she turned back, she wasn’t sure if it was terror, excitement, or blood loss that left her barely breathing as the masses of Xing knelt before her.

“Your Majesty,” she choked out, turning back to him, and he showed her mercy and rose, though when she tried to bow again, he narrowed his eyes in a warning.

“You have my sincerest thanks and gratitude, hero of Xing.  Your sacrifices will be remembered, and your rewards great.”

She could only stand and gape, chest tightened, everything frozen.

A touch on her hand brought her out of her stupor, and she turned to see Ling, still kneeling, though everyone else had risen.

“What are you doing?” she asked faintly.

“Apologizing.”  He took her hand, holding it between the two of his.  “For everything.  What I said to you.  What I did _._  I let my pride dictate my actions, and I hurt you.”

“Ling,” she whispered, trying to tug him up.  “Please…”

“No.”  He shook his head.  “I don’t know if I can ever make it up to you, but I’m willing to try.  Even if it takes the rest of my life.”

Lan Fan caught the Emperor glancing over at them out of the corner of her eye, and began to try to tug Ling up even harder.  “All right, all right!” she yelped softly, feeling herself begin to flush.  “Yes, of course, if you’ll allow me to stay with you—”

“ _Allow?_ ”  Emperor Yao’s voice cut in as he walked over, and Ling finally rose, to her immense relief.  “Lan Fan, I am hoping that you will be with us for a _very_ long time.  Au Chu!”

The man scurried over, bowing and simpering in a way that left Lan Fan with a grimace.  From the crease on Emperor Yao’s lips, he didn’t miss it, either.  “Yes, Your Majesty?”

“See to it that the Xiu family is restored its place in the court records, and set out a proclamation to spread the word of what its daughter has done.”

Lan Fan could see the sour expression on Au Chu’s face, but he didn’t visibly protest.  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

With a jerk of his head, he indicated that Au should follow him, and continued speaking, though very blatantly did not keep his voice lowered.  “Also draft the documentation to declare Ling Yao my legal heir, and to grant the Xiu family nobility, should they decide they want it.  After all, a folk hero would make an excellent choice for future Empress, don’t you think?”

“ _What?!_ ”

Unfortunately, Lan Fan was only able to enjoy a fraction of the Emperor’s subsequent lecture to Au, much as she was glad that it had finally happened.  Only one of his words had really stuck in his mind.

_Empress?_

“Lan Fan?  Lan Fan!”

She jerked her head up, dizzy once again, to see Ling’s reassuring face in front of it.

“Empress?!”

He sighed and shook his head.  “Don’t let him intimidate you.  He’s like that.  I promise, I won’t let him force you into anything you don’t want.”

She let out a shocked laugh, covering her mouth with her hand.  “I… I suppose if I were ever to deserve you as a spouse,” she said faintly, “I may have finally earned that privilege.”

“Privi— _no_ , Lan Fan!”  He laughed softly, reaching out to brush her hair out of her face, not caring that she was still sticky with blood, smiling at her with that look she had seen on his face so many times before.  It wasn’t until now, however, that she finally managed to place it.

Adoration.

“You deserve everything, everything and more, and you always have.  Whatever you decide,” he said quietly, “whatever we become, _I_ am the one who will always be honored to be with you, however that may be.”

Her fingers reached up of their own volition, tracing his cheek, running her thumb underneath his eye.  He leaned closer, and although something in her mind screamed public, _public,_ we’re in _public!_ , she leaned in the last few inches and pressed her lips to his.

The cheering, faintly in the background, might have been the crowd, or it might have been her brain, the blood rushing through her ears…

His hand rested on her left side, and she felt the pain return.

Oh.

“Can…” she mumbled against his lips, and received an encouraging “Mmmm?” in return.  “Can… can we go inside?  I’d like to lie down…”

He froze, then yanked back with a horrified gasp.  “Shit!  Yes, yes, of course, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”

“You’re hopeless,” Ed and Rebecca muttered at the same time, then exchanged a look.

Ling placed a hand on her back, and the others fell into place around her.  An escort.  An honor guard.

Despite her missing arm, despite her bumps and cuts and bruises, Lan Fan couldn’t help but smile as she looked up at the entryway to the palace.

Shoulder squared, chin held high, she stepped inside.


	15. Chapter 15

[ ](http://jacktsuki.tumblr.com/post/149955967778/)

_Art by[Jacktsuki](http://jacktsuki.tumblr.com/)_

  


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**_Three Months Later_ **

“I can’t believe it.”

Lan Fan tilted her head at the mutter, trying not to smirk a bit.  She had _said_ she would halve Ed’s recovery time when he had protested that it usually took years.  A foolish challenge, perhaps, but the fact that he had told her it was impossible made her even thirstier to succeed.

“I have _never_ seen someone recovering this quickly from automail surgery,” her mechanic, Winry, sighed.  Her pretty face was furrowed in a scowl as she tucked her blonde hair—Amestrian blonde, though her family lived in Xerxes—behind her ear.  “You might just meet that six month deadline.”

Lan Fan pulled her left arm back, testing the joints carefully.  The design of the thing had more plating than Ed’s, was less sleek and a bit bulkier with extra armor plating, but… it suited her, she thought with a faint smile.

“Anyway, I’ll see you again in three days. I can’t _wait_ to tell Ed that you’re beating him,” she finished, and she and Lan Fan shared a smirk.

A soft knock sounded on the door, and they both looked up.  Ling stood in the open doorway, a soft smile on his face.

“I’ll just… leave you two alone.”  Winry smirked slyly, leaving the blushing Lan Fan with a knowing wink.

Ling closed the door after her.

“Coming along well?” he asked, stepping over to the bed to sit next to her, on her right side.  She leaned into him, and he put an arm around her shoulders.

“Yes.  I’m hoping to be functional within the next three or four months, but we’ll see.  I’ll be up and guarding you in no time.”

“There’s no need to hurry!” he protested with a chuckle.  “After all, it’s not as if I’m doing anything where I have to go out and… well, do things.  Meetings, paperwork…”

“Oh, so you wish you _weren’t_ the heir, then?” Lan Fan asked innocently.

Ling scoffed.  “As if!  No one else could do that job!  After my actions in the war?  And yours, of course; I haven’t let anyone forget that.  Xerxes has agreed to open channels of communication with both us and Amestris.  We should be seeing the first Xingese alchemists by the time your arm is better, and speaking of which, you’re not just the most beloved person in Xing, but you’re our shining example of how automail will benefit this country—”

“All right, all right,” she muttered, elbowing him.  “Enough of the politics.  You never talk about anything else.”

“…Shall I talk about your beauty, then?”  He pulled back and smirked at her slyly, knowingly, and she scowled, reddening.

“Try it and I’ll try out my new weaponized automail on your face _._ ”

“But what about _your_ face, my beauty, my flower?  Shining like moonlit petals on the water—”

“That doesn’t even make _sense!_ ”

“—cheeks flushed like the spring blossoms—”

“Ling!”

“—hair as delicate as the spider’s cobweb—wait, that’s not right—”

“That’s disgusting,” she muttered, pulling away and standing, turning so he couldn’t see the grin on her face.  “You’re disgusting.  And you are going to be the most ridiculous emperor Xing has ever seen.”  She shot a look over her shoulder, narrowing her eyes and smirking, opening her mouth—

“If you don’t strangle me first?” he finished, smiling innocently.

“Now you’ve got it.”

“How about your prowess in battle?  I’ve heard at least nineteen separate songs and tales about it already, and that’s not even counting the variations—”

A knock on the door saved Ling from—what, exactly, Lan Fan didn’t know, but it was well-deserved, whatever it was.  She shook her head and walked over, pulling it open.

Her grandfather stood before her, her mother at his side.

With a gasp, she threw herself forward, mindful of his leg and her automail as she wrapped her arms around him, holding her tightly.

“You came,” she whispered fiercely in his ear.  Until he had shown up, she had been afraid, just a bit, that he would still be angry at her…

“Oh, Lan Fan,” he breathed, holding her just as tightly.  “I missed you so.”

Managing to detach herself before the tears began in full force, she accomplished no such feat with her mother: the both of them began to weep the moment their arms wrapped around each other.

“I’m so glad you’re safe,” she whispered, cupping Lan Fan’s cheeks, and Lan Fan offered her a watery smile back.

“See, Fu?  Safe and sound.”

Lan Fan jumped at the low, melodious woman’s voice, stumbling backwards a bit and trying to wipe her tears off her face, mortified that she would be caught crying in front of the Empress!

“I wasn’t sure how you lot would treat her, Mingzhu,” Fu grumbled, turning to glare, though Lan Fan could tell from the way the Empress smiled that she knew that the words were in jest.  “Seeing as she’s probably the only decent person in this building…”

“And that’s why we couldn’t let her go,” she replied delicately, smiling warmly at Lan Fan, who swallowed.  The Empress was a regal, handsome woman, and though she had been nothing but kind to Lan Fan, the competency and directness she displayed when pressed by courtiers was more than a little frightening.

Lan Fan thought she might want to be like this woman when she grew older.

“Mother,” Ling drawled.  “You interrupted my poetry!”

“Better to spare the poor woman, then,” Mingzhu sighed.  “Now, come with me.  I think that Lan Fan has earned some time alone with her family.”

With a sigh, Ling nodded, though he did pause and peck her on the cheek before he walked out.  Lan Fan closed her eyes at the suspicious looks both Zhong and Fu gave her, reminding herself to make Ling suffer for the explanations she would have to give to both of them.

But all of that melted away as she and Fu embraced again.

“A year,” he murmured.  “I thought you were dead, soon after you ran, and then news came—”

“I’m so sorry,” she babbled.  “For disobeying, for stealing—I just—I couldn’t let you die, I couldn’t let us continue on like—”

“Shhh.”  He squeezed her hands, then limped over to the plush couch in Lan Fan’s room, groaning as he sat.  “You have nothing to be sorry for.  I am so proud of you.”

Lan Fan inhaled, gripping the edge of her seat, tears returning to her eyes.

“Lan Fan.”  Zhong reached out to place a hand on her daughter’s thigh.  “Neither of us could be prouder of the woman you have become.”

And the tears spilled over once again, not a single dry eye among the three of them.

Eventually, of course, tears turned to grins and laughter as they talked of plans, of the Emperor’s decrees and honors on their family, settling into relaxation.

“Now, Lan Fan,” Fu interjected gruffly.  “You know you have to tell us the story of what _really_ happened.  I’ve heard so many songs about it I don’t know the truth of it!  You wouldn’t believe some of the ridiculous things they come up with.  Slaying monsters, taking on an army singlehanded, bringing down the enemy’s tower with only your wits…”

“That one’s actually true,” she murmured, a slow smile forming at the shocked expressions on their faces.  “Well, the gunpowder helped.”

“I think you’d better start at the beginning,” Zhong finally said, getting the words out with difficulty.

Lan Fan leaned back against the couch, casting her memories back as well, back to the beginning, back to when she stepped through that thicket into the camp of an army preparing for war.

“The day I first showed up, I made an absolute fool of myself.  That was how I met Ling.  He had just arrived at the camp…”

As the story continued on, Fu and Zhong gasping and smiling and flinching at all the right parts, Lan Fan couldn’t keep herself from grinning.

Finally, the three of them were back where they belonged.

  


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[ ](http://nimohtar.tumblr.com/post/149333173498/artwork-for-the-wonderful-story-adversitys)

_Art by[Nimohtar](http://nimohtar.tumblr.com/)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to give a massive thank you to everyone who's followed along while I've posted this, to my readers, and to my artists as well! I hope you enjoyed the amazing art as much as I did! There should be one more posting later today ;) I'll have the links up!
> 
>  
> 
> If you enjoyed this work, perhaps consider checking out the other fic I did for the Big Bang, this one RoyEd (note warnings and 18+ rating, please).

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Art for Adversity's Bloom by Xyriath](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7841983) by [Nimohtar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nimohtar/pseuds/Nimohtar)




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